A court in Bangladesh has taken a rather drastic step by ordering the seizure of cricketer Shakib Al Hasan’s assets. This situation has arisen due to his ties to the country’s former leader, Sheikh Hasina. Shakib has a pretty complicated background with the political scene. Once, he even served as a lawmaker for Hasina’s party, but that all changed. Hasina was overthrown last year during protests led by students, which resulted in her fleeing the country in a helicopter to escape the chaos in Bangladesh.
Because of Shakib’s connections to Hasina, he’s become the target of public wrath. He, along with several others, is under investigation for possible involvement in a tragic police crackdown that resulted in many deaths during those protests. Although Shakib hasn’t been charged in connection with the crackdown just yet, he isn’t in the clear either. Right now, he’s dealing with serious fraud charges related to cheques that bounced, which add up to more than $300,000.
On a recent Monday, a magistrate in Dhaka made the call to seize Shakib’s assets. This came after the court issued an arrest warrant for him back in January. At the time, Shakib was playing in a domestic Twenty20 cricket tournament in Canada, and since then, he hasn’t come back to Bangladesh, likely because of the political tension back home.
For those who might not know much about Shakib, he’s a well-known left-arm allrounder. Over the course of his career, he’s played 71 Test matches, 247 one-day internationals, and 129 Twenty20 matches for Bangladesh. In total, he has taken an impressive 712 wickets. It’s tough to see such a sporting figure caught up in a legal mess, especially when it’s intertwined with politics. The situation is quite serious, and it’s unclear how it’ll play out for him in the coming months.
