After Awami League’s Syed Ashraf, BNP chief Khaleda criticises JaSoD

While criticising the Awami League-led ruling coalition over killings and forced disappearances, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has blamed its partner JaSoD for these.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 14 June 2016, 04:40 PM
Updated : 14 June 2016, 05:52 PM

The BNP chief made the comments on Leftist Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, JaSoD, on Tuesday amidst a political debate over Awami League General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam’s remarks on the party.

The Awami League leader accused JaSoD on Monday of ‘creating a situation that led to the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’. 

Pointing her finger at JaSoD, Khaleda said, “The members of this party killed and abducted people in Awami League. They (JaSoD) used abusive language to criticise their (Awami League) leader.”

“Now Hasina (Awami League chief Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina) has forgotten all that and has valued these murderers and torturers instead of the people in her own party.

“This has created the current situation in the country,” Khaleda said.

“The real murderers are among them (government). They have experienced killers amidst them who have been abducting and killing for a long time,” she said.

“When Awami League was fighting the Liberation War, these people were connected with them. BNP was yet to be born that time,” she added.

A part of Awami League formed JaSoD and launched a movement against the Bangabandhu government following a split from Bangladesh Chhatra League after the Liberation War.

Many lives were lost in the confrontation between the then Awami League government’s Rokkhibahini and JaSoD’s military wing Ganabahini at the time.

BNP founder Ziaur Rahman was confined in a coup after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on Aug 15 in 1975.

JaSoD freed Zia in a counter-coup on Nov 7 that year. Later Zia came to the centre of Bangladesh’s politics and formed the BNP.

JaSoD military wing commander Col Abu Taher, who led the operation to free Zia, was hanged in a court martial by the BNP founder.

The High Court in a verdict said Taher’s hanging was a ‘cold blooded murder’.

JaSoD is now a partner of Awami League in the ruling coalition.

Its President Hasanul Haq Inu, a former deputy commander of Ganabahini, is the information minister in Hasina’s Cabinet.

Syed Ashraf on Monday said Awami League will have to ‘atone’ in the future for making Inu a minister.

Awami League Presidium Member Obaidul Quader has said Syed Ashraf’s remarks were ‘merely personal’, not the party’s view.

Inu is one of the harsh critics of BNP, which terms him ‘propaganda minister’ for calling Khaleda ‘leader of militants’.

The BNP chief on Tuesday blamed Awami League for the ‘rise of militancy and terrorism’ in the country’.

She was speaking at an Iftar gathering organised by pro-BNP organisation Association of Engineers, Bangladesh (AEB) in Dhaka.

“She (Hasina) wants to assure the foreigners that she will suppress terrorism. But she will not actually do it,” Khaleda said.

Referring to the recent ‘unsolved’ killings, the BNP chief said, “She (Hasina) said she knew something about the killings. Then why is the government not catching the killers?”

“Now the government is arresting innocent people and leaders and activists of BNP and other opposition parties while hiding or letting the real killers flee abroad,” she added.

She alleged police have arrested 2,200 leaders and activists of her party so far in the ongoing drive against militants.