Ershad’s adviser Hajjaj ‘forced to leave country’

Bobby Hajjaj, File photo

A government agency has allegedly forced Bobby Hajjaj, a special adviser to Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad, to leave the country Monday night.

“I was forced to leave the country,” a staff of Jatiya Party Research and Strategy Wing, in which Hajjaj is the chief, quoted Hajjaj as telling him over phone from London this evening.

He said the government agency has also forced to shut down the research wing.

Earlier on Saturday, the members of the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) picked up Hajjaj and forced him to withdraw all political statements he made on behalf of Ershad at a press conference on that day.

In the press briefing, Hajjaj claimed that Ershad had informed him that he was not ill and was forcefully taken to the CMH, Dhaka by a government intelligence agency and reiterated his stance about not to join the January 5 parliamentary polls.

The JP research wing staff said Hajjaj had been asked to go to the Rab headquarters at Uttara at 3:30pm Saturday.

When he turned up, he was quizzed for an hour about the statements.

The Rab men later 6:00pm picked him up from his Gulshan residence minutes he had held a press briefing.

But he was released the next day on condition of leaving the country.

Asked, Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu denied the allegations saying Hajjaj is not such an important person that the security of the country would be in danger if he stays in the country.