The police took Bidisha to Gulshan Police Station from Ershad's President Park in the cosy Baridhara neighbourhood around 5:30pm. Ershad accused her of cheating, embezzlement, theft, damaging furniture and making threats.

The former president was staying at the house of JP Secretary General Ruhul Amin Hawlader near the police station when the arrest was made. Witnesses said he left the apartment at about 9:00am for the JP's Banani office and sent the party's International Affairs Secretary Golam Mosih to file the case.

Sources close to Ershad said he is now preparing to end the four-year marriage with his second wife. He was not available on the phone for comment yesterday.

Bidisha, who had been receiving treatment at ZH Sikdar Medical College and Hospital at Gulshan, fled the clinic Friday night dodging the police stationed in and around it and stayed at the Baridhara house.

Earlier, both uniformed and plainclothes policemen were deployed in front of the house, which the law-enforcers entered around 3:30pm, just 30 minutes after the case was filed.

Sources, however, said Ershad sued Bidisha under pressure from the government high-ups who earlier forced the JP chief to expel her from the party.

In the first information report (FIR) Ershad said Bidisha embezzled around Tk 7.5 lakh and stole a mobile phone set, according to a police source. He also alleged Bidisha threatened to kill him after the expulsion and damaged photographs and other valuables, the source said.

A policeman present at the scene said when Bidisha was shown the FIR, she shouted, "I don't believe this."

"As the police insisted on her going to Gulshan Police Station, she tried to jump out the window to the ground with her son Eric in a bid to commit suicide," he said.

She was eventually talked into getting downstairs of the house where she replied to a few questions from waiting journalists. She was taken to heavily guarded Gulshan Police Station in a van at 5:32pm. Tears were rolling down her cheeks as Bidisha sat in the police van with Eric in her lap.

"Bidisha was brought to Gulshan Police Station after she was arrested in connection with a case filed by her husband," Obaidur Rahman, deputy commissioner of DMP (north), told The Daily Star.

She was confined until 10:30 last night to the police station and no journalists were allowed in. A physician from the private clinic removed a saline needle planted in one of her hands, through which blood was oozing.

Jatiya Party leaders Kazi Firoz Rashid, Shafiul Alam Pradhan and Sheikh Shawkat Hossain Nilu visited Bidisha at the police station.

Sources said JP leaders Kazi Zafar Ahmed and Ruhul Amin Hawlader have been working against Bidisha since she joined the party.

Zafar and Ruhul have alleged that she was trying to affiliate the JP leaders with the Awami League.

Bidisha shouted at reporters during her arrest that the two JP leaders have conspired against her.

Meantime, Ershad's PS last night took Bidisha's son Eric Ersahd to the JP chief's Baridhara house from Gulshan Police Station.