Mujib should be sued for sedition

In yet another controversial remark, Tarique Rahman has said that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman should be sued for sedition.

"Sheikh Mujib returned home with a Pakistani passport [after the Liberation War] and became the president of the country. For this, a sedition case needs to be filed against him," said the BNP senior vice-chairman.

Tarique has recently hit the headlines for making a flurry of controversial comments on the Father of the Nation and his role in the country's struggle for Independence.

The elder son of BNP chief Khaleda Zia came up with the fresh attack on Bangabandhu while addressing a discussion in East London on Wednesday to mark "National Revolution and Solidarity Day" introduced and observed by his party.

Pointing to a recent sedition case filed against him, Tarique claimed that he had been sued for "spelling out the real history" of the country.

On October 18, Moshiur Rahman Malek, president of Bangabandhu Foundation, filed the case against Tarique for calling Bangabandhu a “Pakbandhu (Friend of Pakistan)”.

“Sheikh Mujibur Rahman cannot be the Father of the Nation. He returned to the country with a Pakistani passport [after Liberation]. Someone who accepts Pakistani passport even after Bangladesh's Independence is a citizen of that country, according to law,” Tarique said at a discussion in East London on September 29.

On Wednesday, Tarique reiterated that his father Ziaur Rahman, founder of the BNP, was "not only the first one to proclaim Independence but also the first elected president of the independent Bangladesh.”

Neither did Ziaur Rahman assume power forcibly nor did he have anything to do with the killing of four national leaders inside Dhaka Central Jail, he claimed.

Rejecting Awami League General Secretary and LGRD Minister Syed Ashraful Islam's November 3 remark that Zia was involved with the jail killing, Tarique alleged, “The Awami League itself had committed the crime.”

Tarique claimed his father was “under house arrest” at his cantonment residence on November 2, 1975, a day before the jail killing took place.

Earlier at a discussion in London on March 25, he first claimed that Zia was the first president of Bangladesh because he first proclaimed the Independence in 1971.

Tarique was arrested in 2007 during the army-backed caretaker government regime. Around a dozen corruption cases were filed against him. A year later, he was freed on bail and flew to the UK for treatment. Since then he has been living there with his family.