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Published : 12 Feb 2026, 11:56 AM
Asiya was barely a teenager during the Liberation War. More than five decades later, the memory of the Razakars -- collaborators who sided with the Pakistani army -- remains sharp in her mind.
Those memories surfaced again as she stood outside a polling station on Thursday.
“They should be ashamed. How can they dream of running Bangladesh?” she said quietly, recalling the fear and violence she witnessed as a child.
The 67-year-old had just cast her ballot at the Pirerbagh Government Primary School polling centre in Dhaka-15.
As she spoke, she drew a personal comparison — this time with BNP Chairperson Tarique Rahman.
“I am an orphan, and he is an orphan too,” she said.
A BNP supporter, Asiya believes Tarique Rahman -- the son of former president Ziaur Rahman and former prime minister Khaleda Zia -- has the ideas needed to run the country.
“I voted in 2014, but after that I couldn’t vote,” she told bdnews24.com. “Today I voted freely. The environment is very good.”
Asked whether she had been able to vote for her preferred candidate, she referred to Tarique’s mother Khaleda.
“I have only one favourite, who has left this world. I didn’t want to say it, but I’m telling you,” she said.
“I voted for him. Because I am an orphan and he (Tarique) is an orphan. We want him to come. He has experience. Even if many new people come, I don’t like them.”
Explaining her hesitation about “new” leaders, Asiya returned to 1971.
“I saw the war, I saw the Razakars. I was 12 years old then. I saw everything. I saw the Liberation War, I saw the Razakars in our village. I saw many things.”
The past, for her, remains inseparable from the present.
Her home, she said, is just beside the polling centre, making it easy to come and vote.
“I came alone. My life is alone. I have one daughter. I have no family.”
