Now Khaleda isn’t getting even as much respect as Pakistani forces showed her: Oli

Khaleda Zia is not getting the respect even the Pakistani army, which carried out genocide and mass rape of Bangladeshis seeking freedom, showed her when she was in their custody during the Liberation War, Oli Ahmad has remarked.

The decorated freedom fighter also showered the Pakistani occupation forces with praises for “maintaining their culture and standards during the war” at a news conference organised by the Jatiya Mukti Mancha in Dhaka on Friday.

The platform, headed by Liberal Democratic Party chief Oli, organised the event to demand the release of the BNP Chairperson and former prime minister Khaleda, who is in jail for corruption.

“Ms Zia is a freedom fighter. Because she was a prisoner to the Pakistanis,” Oli, a former BNP leader and now a key ally of the party, said. 

“Pakistani soldiers did many things, but they did not abandon their culture, standards. They showed Ms Zia respect. But she is not getting that much respect from the people of her own country,” he remarked.

“Those whom we swear at through name-calling showed Ms Zia the utmost respect. But those who claim themselves to be children of the Father of the Nation have no respect for the freedom fighters and their families,” Oli claimed.

Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of the nation’s founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is heading the government after being re-elected for the fourth term in a huge defeat conceded by the BNP and its allies.

File Photo: Jailed BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia is undergoing treatment at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University under the supervision of the prison authorities.

Enlarging on his claims, the former army colonel said the then governor general of erstwhile East Pakistan Lt General AAK Niazi always considered the wives of his subordinate officers like Khaleda’s husband and BNP founder Ziaur Rahman as his daughters.

“I want to tell the people that Mr Niazi was here. He was the first commanding officer of (slain) president Ziaur Rahman. First commander is like a father. So, the other officers of a battalion are like his (commander’s) sons and the officers’ wives are like his daughters,” Oli said.     

Oli was awarded the Bir Bikram title for his gallantry during the war. He later played a role in forming the BNP under the leadership of Bangladesh’s first military ruler Zia after the assassination of Bangabandhu.

Oli had formed the LDP after falling out with the BNP as a policymaker of the party one and a half decades ago.

He recently launched the political platform of different BNP-allied parties amid differences with the BNP over its joining parliament despite it having rejected general election results.

None of the parties in the new bloc, however, has left the old BNP-led 20-Party Alliance.