Kamal 'careful' on Tarique

The government has to examine if it would be reasonable to bring sedition charges against Tarique Rahman, says the junior home minister.

Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said on Saturday his government would have to closely examine whether it would be proper to bring such charges against the London-based BNP leader.

Tarique's recent diatribes against Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman -- he was an illegal Prime Minister -- follows his claims that his father Ziaur Rahman was the first president of Bangladesh.

These have upset Awami League leaders and some of them like Suranjit Sengupta have insisted that Tarique should be tried for sedition.

But the State Minister for Home struck a cautious note while speaking to journalists at the launch of Ahsania Mission’s drug rehabilitation centre for women in Mohammadpur in Dhaka.

"We should not do anything questionable or that could cause protests," Kamal said , indicating the government should refrain from being provoked by Tarique.

But Kamal pointed out that Tarique had admitted to his crimes and was on parole, but he was violating it by not returning to Bangladesh.

He claimed the Awami League government had identified the people behind the Ramna Batamul attacks and arranged for their trial, but the Khaleda Zia government delayed that.

The case against the perpetrators behind the bomb blast at Ramna Batamul during Bangla New Year celebrations on April 14, 2001 that killed 10 people is now before the Second Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court of Dhaka.

Witnesses finished deposing in that court by October last year.

After a waste of seven years, investigators have now found Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami’s (HuJI) was behind that explosion.

“The case did not progress when people who sponsored that attack came to power,” Kamal alleged.

He said his government would try to speed up the case.

“If some of the accused are abroad, they will also be brought back,” he said, but did not specify anyone by name.

Speaking at the event, the minister said no drugs apart from cannabis were produced in the country.

Drugs enter through borders of India and Myanmar and Bangladesh had tried to influence the neighbours to crack down on drug-processing factories on its borders, Kamal said.

The Ahsania Mission rehabilitation centre was opened as the first-ever drug rehabilitation centre for women in the country.