BNP slams Daily Star after Editor Mahfuz Anam admits to running DGFI-fed reports

BNP has joined others in criticising 'The Daily Star' after its Editor Mahfuz Anam admitted to running baseless reports fed by DGFI during the military-controlled caretaker government’s tenure.

The party’s leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi has questioned the daily’s stance referring to a recent report on party founder Ziaur Rahman.

“Some years ago, maybe 1998-99, the newspaper published an editorial, ‘Tribute to Zia’, on his death anniversary,” he said.

“But the paper now publishes reports linking Zia with [Bangabandhu] Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassination. I don’t know why they are doing this and what their intention is,” he added.  

Rizvi said both former prime minister BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina faced the same situation created during the ‘1/11 episode’ followed by the army-backed government’s tenure.

He mentioned the ‘Minus Two Formula’, a conspiracy analysts believe aimed at banishing both Hasina and Khaleda from politics.

After Anam’s admission, Hasina’s son and ICT Affairs Advisor Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed Joy demanded his arrest and trial for treason for trying to facilitate a military coup by running a smear campaign against his mother.

Rizvi, however, also criticised Joy for blaming Anam for ‘treason’.

“We haven’t ever talked like this,” he claimed.

He claimed BNP leaders, including Khaleda, have never run propaganda against those linked to the ‘1/11 episode’.

“People are not without mistakes. We (BNP) know how to forgive these... We forget many things,” Rizvi said.