DHAKA: Two top leaders of Bangladesh’s main opposition party were released from prison on Monday, officials said, a month after they were arrested during a massive crackdown on political activists.

Police said Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, secretary general of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and Mirza Abbas, a former minister and member of the party’s top decision-making body, were freed from a jail outside the capital Dhaka. Hundreds of supporters greeted the pair after they arrived at BNP headquarters in central Dhaka where Alamgir spoke briefly, a party spokesman told AFP.

Alamgir and Abbas were arrested on December 9 a day before the BNP were set to hold their biggest political rally in over a decade.