Dhaka  - Police have arrested two local leaders of Bangladesh's largest Islamist party on charges of committing war crimes during the country's war of independence
38 years ago, media reports said Saturday.

The arrests were the first made by the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed, who took office last month after promising to bring the 1971 war criminals to justice.

Daud Hossain, 70, and Nur-a-Anwar, 65, who both belong to Jamaat-e-Islami, were arrested Friday in the north-western district of Rajshahi and accused of killing independence supporters, police said.

A leader in the national offices of Jamaat-e-Islami, which sided with Pakistan in Bangladesh's struggle for independence, said the party had no information about the arrests.

The two was taken to court Saturday for permission to question them on their actions during the war, in which 3 million people died.

Bangladesh's parliament on January 29 approved a resolution seeking speedy war-crimes prosecutions. Hasina's government has also set up an expert committee to examine other country's procedures in prosecuting war criminals.

An early initiative to prosecute war crimes ended with the 1975 assassination in an army coup of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina's father and the architect of Bangladesh's independence. Bangladesh's political instability had hindered it ever since.

The Bangladesh Sector Commander Forum, a group of 1971 war veterans, said last year that 11,000 indicted war criminals were released from jails a few months after Mujib's assassination.

Earlier, the prime minister sought United Nations assistance to try the war criminals, many of whom were rehabilitated in Bangladeshi politics. (dpa)