Tarique demands Bangabandhu be tried for 'sedition'

BNP leader Tarique Rahman has now demanded trial of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for sedition.

Tarique, elder son of BNP chief Khaleda Zia, has been staying in London since 2008.

Known for making scathing remarks against the Father of the Nation, he now hits the headlines claiming that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to Bangladesh with a Pakistani passport in 1972.

"The new generation who are being taught false, distorted and partial history, must know the real history," he said in his two-hour long speech at a BNP-organised discussion in London.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the 'killer of pro-liberation people', said the BNP senior Vice-Chairman, while recounting the events from 1971 to 1975, of course, in his own way.

"I have been sued for sedition as I had spelled out some truths based on historical facts. Why should there be sedition cases now and then for every other comment. If there has to be a sedition case then it should be against Sheikh Mujib."

According to Tarique, Bangabandhu had always 'considered Pakistan a safer option', even though the Bangladeshis saw him as their ‘champion’.

"Sheikh Mujib was sworn in as the President of Bangladesh when he was a Pakistani citizen...a sedition case is necessary to resolve the legal issue of how a Pakistani citizen took oath as the President of independent Bangladesh … "

As for the allegation by Awami League leaders that his father, the BNP founder Ziaur Rahman, was involved in the 1975 assassination, he said it was Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal (JaSaD) who played a role in it.

He named the head of JaSaD and now Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu along with Workers Party chief and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon.

“Then militant leaders like Inu and Menon cannot deny their roles in killing Sheikh Mujib.”

“This group of people who directly or indirectly aided or supported the killing of Sheikh Mujib was now illegally occupying top positions, taking advantage of Sheikh Hasina’s lust to remain in power in any way possible.”

He said ‘the defeated forces from 1975’ were carrying out propaganda against BNP to hide their own misdeeds.

Tarique further claimed that his father was not only the one to 'declare independence' for Bangladesh and its 'first head of state', but also its 'first elected president'.

Ziaur Rahman did not declare martial rule or the ‘Indemnity ordinance’ for Bangabandhu’s killers, he said.

Tarique was arrested and booked for nearly a dozen corruption cases when an army-backed caretaker government took over in the beginning of 2007.

The following year, he secured bail from the Supreme Court and left the country on September that year citing medical grounds.