Jatiya Party President HM Ershad has lambasted BNP chief Khaleda Zia for accusing him of killing her husband and party founder Gen Ziaur Rahman, and asked her not play ‘innocent’ about the murder.
He said: “The people as well as I know who were behind the murder of Zia, and who were staying in the next room [at Chittagong Circuit House]. Khaleda Zia is now doing party activities with them. Why did you not bring the murderers to book?”
The chairman of the main opposition party made the claim while addressing a meeting of the party’s youth body Jatiya Jubo Sanghati at the Diploma Engineering Institute auditorium in the capital on Saturday morning.
He observed that the BNP had no political future as it did not represent the people in parliament.
BNP founder and late president Zia was killed in an army coup on May 30, 1981. Before that Ershad had been the chief of army staff during Zia’s rule from 1977-81. He became president in 1983.
Ershad, also the prime minister’s special envoy, criticised the government saying that it was running the country like Hitler-Mussolini. “The popularity of the government is declining and the people cannot sleep in peace.”
Though several JaPa members are in the government, it is also functioning as the main opposition in current parliament.
Ershad claimed that the government had failed to protect the rights of the citizens. “Abduction incidents have been on the rise across the country, but the government did not take necessary initiatives.”
Citing newspaper reports on enforced disappearance, abduction and killings, the former military dictator alleged that there had been no democracy in the country.
He said: “Democracy does not mean elections only; rather it means protection of the citizens’ lives and their property.”
Source: Dhaka Tribune
Khaleda is disoriented and fingers the wrong person as Zia’s killer. Ershad got Manzur killed through Mannaf. Mannaf killed Manzur ar Comilla and Police was blamed instead.