Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday told parliament after Ziaur Rahman’s assassination in 1981, she had issued a statement first and its theme was that the country would be run as per the Constitution and there should not be any deviation from it and no other army official could grab power illegally.
She said she was returning Dhaka via Sylhet on the day Zia was killed. Following the assassination, train communication with Dhaka was halted. In Akhaura she got the news of Zia killing. After that arriving at Bhairab of Kishorganj, she gave the statement. She said, ” I was first to condemn Zia assassination”
“But not a single member of BNP issued any statement or said anything over it (Zia killing) then,” she recalled.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also said that Ziaur Rahman had illegally grabbed presidency by killing then President Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with his family members on 15 August 1975.
Hasina came up with the allegation replying to a question from Begum Fazilatunnesa Bappi (women seat-30) during her scheduled question-answer session in the House.
The Prime Minister said she along with her younger sister Sheikh Rehana luckily survived as they had been in Germany at that time.
She alleged that Zia had deterred them from returning home every time they wanted, forcing them to stay abroad with political asylum.
Replying to another supplementary question from Bappi, the Prime Minister said she had always tried to strengthen the country’s democracy.
Referring to article 7 of the national charter, Hasina said she and her party had always been in movement so that people could remain as the real owner of the state.
The Prime Minister said her only aim is to present Bangladesh at the global stage as a dignified nation so that it could establish it as a prosperous country free from hunger and poverty, and it could move ahead with the spirit of the Liberation War.
In reply to another supplementary question from treasury bench MP
Nurul Islam Sujon (Panchagarh-2), she said the provision of capital punishment has been incorporated in the article 7 of the Constitution through the 15th amendment to stop violation of the national charter and illegal power usurp.
There was no safeguard against the violation of the Constitution before the 15th amendment to the constitution made in 2009.
The Prime Minister said the Supreme Court verdict nullifying the 5th amendment to the Constitution was a befitting reply to the violators as well as the remedy to the problem of constitution violation.
Source: Prothom Alo
