In 2010, the High Court cancelled the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution and declared Ziaur Rahman an illegal usurper.
The ‘Swadhinata Padak’, or Independence Award, of Liberation War Sector Commander and BNP founder Gen Ziaur Rahman has been removed from the National Museum.
The move came after the Cabinet Committee on National Awards withdrew the award posthumously conferred on him.
In 2003, when the BNP-Jamaat coalition was ruling, the award was posthumously bestowed on the country’s first military ruler Zia and the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The then opposition leader and Bangabandhu’s daughter Sheikh Hasina, now the prime minister, had protested against the move.
| Ziaur Rahman
Khondakar Mushtaq Ahmad declared himself the president after the Bangabandhu was assassinated on Aug 15, 1975 along with most of his family members. He unconstitutionally remained president from Aug 15 to Nov 6 of that year. After Major General Khaled Mosharraf, who had declared himself army chief in a military uprising, was killed, Mushtaq put Major General Ziaur Rahman in charge of the army. Following a military coup on Nov 7, Justice Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem was made president and chief martial law administrator (CMLA). He handed the power of CMLA to Gen Zia on Nov 29, 1976 and stepped down from presidency on health grounds on Apr 21, 1977. Zia succeeded him as president and later formed government through a sham election. He held onto presidency until he was assassinated in a military coup on May 30, 1981. The Swadhinata Padak, Bangladesh’s highest civilian award, was introduced in 1977 during Zia’s rule. In 2010, the High Court cancelled the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution and declared Mushtaq, Sayem, Zia and HM Ershad illegal usurpers. |
Cultural Affairs Secretary Aktari Mamtaz said the medal and the certificate have been removed from the museum at Dhaka’s Shahbagh.
“The Cabinet committee had written us to remove those from the museum and collected it from us,” she told bdnews24.com.
Museum authorities handed them to a Cabinet division official on Wednesday, added Aktari.
A deputy director of the museum told bdnews24.com that the medal and certificate was given to the Cabinet division official around 12:30pm.
He said the medal and certificate have been in display since 2003. It was taken off from the display gallery in 2007 during the military-backed caretaker regime.
The BNP, now led by Zia’s wife, Khaleda, has reacted sharply to its founder being stripped of the award, saying it will prove to ‘suicidal’ for the Hasina administration.
Source: Bd news24
