DHAKA, June 4: Fourteen thousand people have been arrested in Bangladesh over the past week in a crackdown on ‘’criminals and anti-social elements’’, authorities said on Wednesday.

Two major political parities, the Awami League and the BNP, have criticised the crackdown, alleging it is aimed intimidating political opponents.

As many as 1,729 people were detained in 24 hours from Monday morning at different districts across the country. About 1,800 were arrested the day before.

The police headquarters, however, claimed the lawmen had so far arrested 11,083 people on various charges during the ‘routine anti-crime drives. Of the arrested, 1,729 were detained in 24 hours from Sunday morning, it said.

Begum Khaleda Zia, the detained former prime minister and chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, found the ‘mass arrest of the political activists is a part of the government’s design to malign the political class in general’. “The government has initially arrested the politicians branding them as corrupt, and now it is arresting political activists by branding them criminals,” Khaleda said this morning, when she was brought to a special court trying a graft case against her.

The secretary general of her party, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, in a statement on Tuesday also criticised the government for resorting ‘repression on arresting political activists in the name of nabbing criminals’.

“The government on the one hand wants effective dialogues [with political parties and others] apparently to forge a consensus, on the other hand, it is taking repressive measures against the political activists,” said Khandaker. “Such double standards will deepen the ongoing political crisis.”

The other major party, Bangladesh Awami League, has made similar observation about the mass arrest of the political activists.

Terming the countrywide blanket arrest ‘ill motivated and provocative’, Awami League’s acting general secretary, Syed Ashraful Islam, on Tuesday asked the government to immediately stop arresting political activists.

“While the caretaker government is expected to create a congenial atmosphere for credible elections, it is complicating the environment further by way of continuing repressive measures against the political activists across the country,” said the League’s general secretary.

However, the inspector general of police, Noor Mohammad, said the ‘drive should not be termed blanket arrest, in the first place’.

“The number of the people arrested during the special operation against criminals and crime suspects is not much higher than the usual figure of such routine drives,” the police chief said as he talked with newsmen on Tuesday afternoon.

He, however, claimed law and order had not deteriorated. “We do not think the overall law and order has deteriorated, but some incidents of murder and attack on law enforcers took place in a short span of time.”

Meanwhile, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights on Tuesday strongly criticised the ongoing mass arrests of political leaders and activists and other people throughout Bangladesh since May 31, 2008.

The FIDH, in its statement, urged the authorities of Bangladesh either to release the persons arrested or to bring clear charges against them. It also asked them to guarantee their right to a fair trial, in accordance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has been ratified by Bangladesh.