Bangladesh politics: BNP acting chairman Tarique gets 2 years in jail for remark on Bangabandhu
File photo of BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman.
Bangladesh Desk:
Narail Judicial Magistrate Court-2 in Bangladesh on Thursday sentenced opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party acting chairman Tarique Rahman to two-year simple imprisonment in a case filed over defaming the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 2014.
Judicial Magistrate Amatul Morsheda delivered the verdict and fined the acting BNP chief Tk 10,000 or six months in jail in default.
Tarique, now residing in London, was undefended as he faced the trial in absentia. The state did not appoint any lawyer to defend him in the case, additional public prosecutor Sanjeeb Kumar Basu told New Age.
He said that the court pronounced the verdict after recording the statements of three prosecution witnesses.
The additional PP said that Tarique made the derogatory remarks about Mujib at a BNP meeting at Antrium Banquet Hall in East London on December 16, 2014.
On December 24, 2014, freedom fighter Shahajan Biswas, a resident of Benderchar village in Kalia upazila of Narail, filed the defamation case against the BNP leader with Narail Sadar Judicial Court for making the derogatory comments against Mujib.
Immediately after the announcement of the verdict, BNP and its front organisation leaders, led by its senior joint-secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, brought out a procession from the party central office at the capital’s Naya Paltan area protesting against the conviction.
The party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir in a statement condemned the conviction terming the case as false, baseless and politically motivated.
Fakhrul said that Tarique Rahman was brought to the scene by convicting him in a false case after the government failed to give any logical explanation on some of its misdeeds published in a foreign media.
He alleged that the verdict proved that the court is in the grip of the government and that the verdict is a reflection of the prime minister’s will.
‘Not only the mass media but the whole nation is also suffering from self-censorship due to the government’s dreadful torture and oppression,’ he said.
Tarique, the eldest son of BNP founder and late president Ziaur Rahman and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, was sentenced to life-term imprisonment in 2018 in a case filed over 2004 grenade attack on a rally of Awami League on Bangabandhu Avenue.
The attack left over 20 dead and scores injured, including current prime minister Sheikh Hasina. BNP denied his involvement in the attack.
On July 21, 2016, the High Court sentenced Tarique to seven years’ imprisonment and fined him Tk 20 crore in a money laundering case, overturning a lower court verdict that acquitted him in the case filed over laundering Tk 20.41 crore.
New Age
