BNP chief Khaleda attends Iftar hosted by Jamaat-e-Islami

Khaleda Zia has attended an Iftar hosted by the Jamaat-e-Islami amid speculation that the BNP party’s relations with its key ally have strained because of pressures from different sections.

At the Iftar organised at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Dhaka Hotel on Thursday, Jamaat leaders urged all to wage a ‘united’ movement against the Awami League-led government.
 
Khaleda was the chief guest at the gathering.
 
She was, however, two minutes late to join the Iftar haveing been caught in traffic.
 
Hanged war criminals Muhammad Kamaruzzaman’s sons Hasan Iqbal Wami and Hasan Iman, and Abdul Quader Molla’s son Hasan Jamil, and convicted war criminals Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid’s son Ali Ahmed Tahkik and Ali Ahsan Mabrur and Delwar Hossain Sayedee’s son Shamim bin Sayedee were present.
 
Lawyers for the defendants in war crimes cases M Tajul Islam and Shishir Muhammad Monir and leaders of the 20-Party Alliance also joined the event.
 
In his speech before the Iftar, Jamaat leader Mujibur Rahman alleged that their party leaders ‘are being killed through conspiracies’.
 
“The government has killed Abdul Quader Molla and Muhammad Kamaruzzaman in a planned way and on false accusations through questionable and controversial trial process,” he said.
 
Rahman further alleged media organisations loyal to the government were trying to stir trouble by creating confusion.
 
Khaleda had claimed several months back that her party’s ties with the Jamaat were only an electoral understanding.
 
But, she said, the ruling Awami League had ‘a long history of close relations’ with the Islamist party and other extremist religious groups.
 
“Our alliance with Jamaat is only an electoral understanding. It is by no means an ideological one,” she had said in an interview with Indian newspaper ‘The Times of India’ in October last year.