Prime Minister said Ziaur Rahman was involved in the conspiracy that led to the August 15, 1975 killings.
She also said: “The killing was not against a family, it was against the state; the killing was aimed at destroying the state,”
Sheikh Hasina made the remarks while addressing a programme marking the National Mourning Day in the capital on Saturday afternoon.
She alleged that Gen Ziaur Rahman prevented her and her sister from returning home after the killing of Bangabandhu. “Whenever we wanted to come back, Zia prevented us.”
“But I came back for the love of people; their love helped me to move forward,” she said.
Remembering the aftermath of the killing of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the other members of her family, Hasina said Ziaur Rahman had rehabilitated the anti-liberation forces and rewarded the killers.
She also said around 2,500 armymen, including both officers and soldiers, were killed upon Zia's orders every time a coup took place in the armed forces after the assassination of the father of the nation.
Referring to the regimes of Khandker Mustaque Ahmed and Zia, the prime minister said an 11-month curfew was put in place in the country after the killing.
“The despotic regimes did everything possible to suppress the history of Bangabandhu and the struggle for liberation. They wanted to make Bangladesh a province of Pakistan once again.”
She also said the process that began in the hands of Ziaur Rahman to turn the country into one ridden with fundamentalism, corruption, etc. had been continued by subsequent regimes of military dictators.