BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman has alleged that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina wants to portray militant Bangladesh.
He made the allegation at a discussion on late president and BNP founder Ziaur Rahman at York Hall in East London, UK yesterday.
“Whenever Hasina is in power, she tries to portray Bangladesh as a militant state. This time, she tried this at the UN summit,” said Tarique, also the elder son of Ziaur Rahman and Khaleda Zia, chief of the party now.
He urged all to form a mass movement against Hasina for what he said “keeping the country free from militancy”.
Claiming again that his father Zia was the first president of Bangladesh, he declined to accept the country’s liberation war leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as Bangabandhu.
Mujibur Rahman returned to the country with a Pakistani passport. Someone who accepts Pakistani passport after Bangladesh earned independence is, in the eyes of law, a citizen of that country, he said.
“It will have to be explained before the people one day how a Pakistani citizen became president or prime minister of Bangladesh,” he said.
Terming Awami League an “evil power in Bangladesh politics”, Tarique said, “Sheikh Hasina is no longer safe for the country. Bangladesh’s independence and sovereignty are not safe (in her hand); democracy and the religious and social values are not safe also.”
Claiming that AL never understood people, the BNP leader said both Sheikh Mujib and Sheikh Hasina never kept trust in public support. “That’s why, they had to go to court for recognition of Mujib’s contribution.”
Tarique said Hasina has formed the government along with the people who created the grounds for the assassination of her father to achieve political interests. “Now she has targeted Ziaur Rahman and his family and BNP for spreading propaganda.”
RISE OF MILITANCY: FACTS
Tarique, his mother Khaleda Zia and top leaders of their party, BNP, have on many occasions claimed that militancy had risen in the country during the Awami League government’s tenure.
However, the country did witness an unprecedented rise in extremism during the incumbency of the BNP-led government. Media reports of the time bear testimony to this.
Under the patronage of the past BNP-led government between 2001 and 2006, Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), two militant outfits, had spread their tentacles in many parts of the country. But the then prime minister Khaleda and some of her government ministers kept denying the existence of the dreaded killer Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai, who was the operations commander of JMB.
The JMB even unleashed simultaneous bomb attacks across the country on August 17, 2005. The unprecedented blasts compelled the BNP-Jamaat government to take some measures, including banning JMB, JMJB and Huji, and arresting some leaders of those militant outfits.
Source: The Daily Star
