Published : 23 Oct 2018, 04:43 AM
Updated : 05 Aug 2022, 06:45 PM
The former adviser to the military-controlled caretaker regime is battling defamation charges over his ‘derogatory’ remarks about a female journalist amidst his involvement with Dr Kamal Hossain-led Jatiya Oikya Front alliance.
In the audio, which drew the netizens’ attention hours before his arrest on Monday, Mainul is heard speaking about “destroying” the leadership of Tarique Rahman, the acting chief in exile of the BNP.
Besides the BNP and Dr Kamal’s Gono Forum, ASM Abdur Rab’s Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal-JSD and the Nagorik Oikya of Mahmudur Rahman Manna are in the new anti-government front forged ahead of the general elections.
Mainul, a barrister by training, is a sponsor of the Front.
The BNP has forged the alliance with Dr Kamal when its Chairperson Khaleda Zia is in jail for corruption and her son Tarique is in London.
Tarique was arrested during the 2007-08 caretaker government with Mainul as one of its advisers. He left Bangladesh in 2008 on being paroled.
He has been sentenced to different terms in jail for money laundering, corruption and recently the Aug 21, 2004 grenade attack on an Awami League rally targeting its chief Sheikh Hasina, the current prime minister.
Leaders of the ruling party have also shared the audio clip of Mainul’s phone conversation on the social media.
bdnews24.com could not independently confirm the source of the clip as none of those who shared it would reveal it.
At one stage of the conversation, the person on the other end of the line asked Mainul whether the speculation that he and Dr Kamal were going to London to meet London was true.
“We will meet Tarique! Where did you get such a goat-like person? Goat or cow? Dr Kamal and I will meet Tarique!” Mainul laughed in reply.
“We’ve brought Dr Kamal to destroy Tarique’s leadership,” he added.
Mainul, the publisher and editorial board chief of The Daily New Nation, addressed the other person as ‘Majumder’.
Rabb Majumder, a former special correspondent at The Daily New Nation, confirmed to bdnews24.com that it was an audio clip of a phone conversation between him and the newspaper editor.
Mainul could not be reached as he had been arrested in a case over “defaming the women” by calling female journalist Masuda Bhatti ‘a woman with loose morals’ in a live TV talk show.
He also spoke about the cases against him over the remarks about Bhatti.
“I will have to spend some days in jail. I am getting ready for this. I’ve secured bail today. Two cases have been started. Politics is about lawsuits. Let them do it,” he said.
Gono Forum Chairman Kamal Hossain speaks at a press conference at the National Press Club in Dhaka on Monday.
“Newspapers are writing that we have forged alliance with the Jamaat. Such question should not arise. We are saying from the beginning that we have no ties with the Jamaat,” he said.
“And we don’t have any special relationship with any individual or political leader, especially Tarique Rahman. We don’t have any ties with him,” he added.
Asked to clear the Front’s relations with the BNP and Tarique, Dr Kamal told journalists, “We don’t have any relations (with Tarique) as an individual. We will work as parties for our seven-point charter of demand.”
He also refuted the Awami League leaders’ claim that he forged the alliance with the BNP to grab power in undemocratic ways.
Referring to the Aug 21 grenade attack verdict, Hasina had said that Dr Kamal, a former leader of her party, joined hands with “killers by accepting the leadership of Tarique”.
Dr Kamal said he did not wish to contest in election or get any state office, but to work for the establishment of a democratic, secular and “multidimensional” society in Bangladesh.
