A Dhaka court yesterday summoned BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman on charges of maligning Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Metropolitan Magistrate Md Rezaul Karim ordered Tarique, the elder son of BNP chief Khaleda Zia, to appear in his court by December 10.
The order came within hours of Md Monir Khan, an assistant secretary of the ruling Awami League’s central sub-committee, filing the case.
The complaint stated that Tarique had made derogatory remarks about Bangladesh’s founding president, also father of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, at a discussion in East London on November 7.
Son of military strongman Ziaur Rahman, Tarique said Sheikh Mujib should be tried for sedition because he had taken oath as president after returning to independent Bangladesh as a Pakistani citizen with a Pakistani passport on January 10, 1972.
“Sheikh Mujib returned to Bangladesh with a Pakistani passport about 25 days after independence and took oath as a Pakistani national,” Tarique said.
The Pakistani occupation forces surrendered on December 16, 1971.
Noting that Bangladeshi newspapers published Tarique’s statement the next day, the complainant said: “The derogatory statement maligned his [Bangabandhu’s] name and the image of our party [the Awami League] so much that it cannot be regained with even Tk100 crore in damages.”
There were, however, no claim for damages in the complaint.
Tarique has given widely debated interpretations of Bangladesh’s history at various programmes in the UK in recent times. Many have termed his interpretations as distortion of history.
On another occasion, he called Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman “Pak-bandhu” (friend of Pakistan). A sedition case was filed against him on October 19 for name-calling and spreading distorted information about the Liberation War.
Advocate Moshiur Malik, president of Bangabandhu Foundation, filed the case with the CMM court.
After hearing the charges against Tarique, Metropolitan Magistrate Muhammad Asaduzzaman Nur ordered police detectives to submit a probe report.
Another defamation case was filed against Tarique on September 8 and his party’s acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir for derogatory remarks about Sheikh Mujib and his daughter Sheikh Hasina.
AB Siddique, president of Bangladesh Jononetri Parishad, a pro-Awami league platform, filed the case.