BNP’s Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman has come up with yet another suggestion that Bangabandhu should be charged with sedition for taking oath as the president of independent Bangladesh as a “Pakistani national.”
Addressing a programme in London on Wednesday, Tarique said: “I have heard that a sedition case has been filed against me for highlighting real history. But, I think such a case should be filed against Sheikh Mujib. He returned to Bangladesh with a Pakistani passport after around 25 days of independence. So, he should be sued to resolve the question that has arisen over his oath taking as a Pakistani national.”
In 1994, war criminal Ghulam Azam, who has recently died in jail, was awarded Bangladeshi citizenship when Khaleda Zia, Tarique’s mother and BNP chief, was in power. Azam came to Bangladesh during Tarique’s father Ziaur Rahman’s rule in 1978 with a Pakistani passport and lived here without any legal document until he got citizenship.
Tarique, who faces 14 charges in the country including one for the August 21 grenade attack, has been living in exile in the UK for around six years.
At various programmes in the UK in recent times, he has given several widely debated versions and interpretations of Bangladesh’s history. In one such programme, he termed Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as “Pakbandhu,” meaning a friend of Pakistan. Many have termed his interpretations as distortions of history.
During yesterday’s programme, claiming once again that Ziaur Rahman, also the founder of BNP, was the first elected president of Bangladesh, Tarique said his father did not proclaim any indemnity.
The Indemnity Act was formulated to give immunity from legal action to the persons involved in the assassination of Bangabandhu. The act was promulgated in September 1975, in the form of an ordinance by the then president Khandker Mushtaque Ahmed. During Zia’s rule in 1979, it was enshrined in the constitution of Bangladesh through the 5th amendment. The act was scrapped by an Awami League government in 1996.
Branding Information Minister Hasanul Haque Inu a “militant,” he said: “Inu and Menon [tourism minister], who were militants at that time [1975], cannot avoid the responsibility of Sheikh Mujib killing. The force that was defeated in 1975, has made BNP a target to hide their own misdeeds.”
Regarding the power situation in the country, Tarique said: “The government has claimed that the current power generation is 10,000MW. But on November 1, when the whole country was out of electricity, production was only 5,000MW. The government has continuously lying about power generation.”
