BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman on Friday visited the grave of his father, former president and BNP founder Ziaur Rahman, at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in Dhaka, nearly 19 years after his last visit.
During a quiet moment at the mausoleum, he was seen wiping tears from his eyes.
Tarique Rahman arrived at the grave around 4:45pm with members of the party’s standing committee, including Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Mirza Abbas, Nazrul Islam Khan, Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, Salahuddin Ahmed, Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku, Selima Rahman, and Hafiz Uddin Ahmed. He offered floral tributes and took part in a munajat.
A day after returning to Bangladesh following 17 years of exile in London, Tarique Rahman paid respects to his father. His last visit to Ziaur Rahman’s grave had been in 2006.
At 5:04pm, he left for the National Martyrs’ Memorial in Savar to pay homage to the Liberation War martyrs. As protocol prevented him from reaching the altar before sunset, party leaders offered tribute on his behalf in the afternoon. Tarique Rahman later arrived at the memorial around 9pm.
Ahead of the visit, Mirza Fakhrul told reporters: “Our beloved leader and future prime minister, Mr Tarique Rahman, has returned to Bangladesh. The people of the country are happy, hope has been rekindled among them, and the nation feels inspired.”
News of Tarique Rahman’s visit drew party leaders and supporters to Zia Udyan from 10am. Strict security measures were maintained at the mausoleum. His motorcade departed House-196 in Gulshan Avenue at 2:52pm, traveling eight kilometers in a bulletproof bus to Zia Udyan. Standing at the front of the bus, decorated in red and green, Tarique Rahman waved to supporters. Due to the massive crowd, it took nearly two hours to reach the mausoleum. He got down from the bus at 4:36pm and walked toward the grave.
Tarique Rahman, 16 when his father was assassinated in 1981, also lost his younger brother, Arafat Rahman Koko, in 2015 while in exile. Both brothers and their mother were arrested following the declaration of the state of emergency in 2007. After their release in 2008, Tarique Rahman went to the United Kingdom, while Arafat Rahman moved to Malaysia.
Returning to Bangladesh on Thursday, 15 months after the Awami League was ousted from power following a student-led mass uprising, Tarique Rahman received a massive reception from hundreds of thousands of BNP supporters along the July Expressway in Purbachal. From there, he visited Evercare Hospital in Bashundhara to see his mother and spent the night at his newly prepared Gulshan residence.
The BNP acting chairman is scheduled to complete his voter registration at the Election Commission building in Agargaon on Saturday and pay respects at the grave of Shaheed Sharif Osman Hadi in the Dhaka University area.
