April 11, 2007
Top Bangladesh Leaders
Charged with Murder
Dhaka
Police in Bangladesh Wednesday charged top leaders of the Awami
League (AL) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) with killing six political
activists at a rally last year.
The name of AL chief and former prime minister Sheikh Hasina does
not figure in the charge sheet - filed on a complaint filed by JEI -
against 45 leaders of the 14-party alliance she leads.
However, JEI's Amir, the supreme leader and a former minister,
Motiur Rahman Nizami and 10 top brass have been charge-sheeted for
violence at the rally Oct 28 on the basis of another complaint made
by the Workers' Party, a constituent of the 14-party combine, Star
Online said Wednesday evening.
The caretaker government's move, coming amid fast-moving
developments, uses complaints of one party to implicate workers of
rival parties, adding a new twist to its current drive against crime
and corruption and places on alert leaders of all political parties,
political analysts said.
There has been speculation in political circles and media, despite
curbs on both with a national emergency in force, that the
government was moving to "force" Sheikh Hasina and her rival and
another former premier Begum Khaleda Zia to leave the country.
However, Zia, who was to have left Wednesday to perform Umra in
Saudi Arabia, decided to stay back and Hasina is cutting short her
US visit to return Saturday after being charged with extortion in a
different case.
The government's drive covers all major political shades in
Bangladesh.
Nizami's being charge-sheeted is the first for the JEI, coalition
partner of Zia that, according to observers, had not been implicated
so far.
Another Zia government minister and top JEI leader Ali Ahsan Mujahid
also figures in the list of those charged.
While Zia's politician son Tareq Rahman is already behind the bars
and is being prosecuted, this is the first time that Hasina herself
has been accused of personally receiving extortion money.
Media reports suggested that Zia initially wanted to bargain that
she would quit the country if her entire family, including Tareq,
were also allowed to leave with her. But she was supposed to have
"agreed" to leave.
Her decision not to leave the country remains unexplained. According
to New Age newspaper, her movements and access to visitors are
'restricted'. Among the few who can meet her are her brother, former
army major Mohammed Iskander, sister-in-law Nasrin Iskander,
bureaucrat-turned BNP leader Musfiqur Rahman and her personal
physician colonel (retired) Mahtabul Islam.
Quoting sources in the investigating agencies and courts, Star
Online said that Hasina and 21 other leaders, whose names surfaced
in the charge sheet, were not originally included in the FIR or
police complaint while the names of 16 people, including AL leaders
Abdur Razzak and Tofail Ahmed, were dropped from the chargesheet.
Among others, AL general secretary Abdul Jalil, Mohammad Nasim,
Jahangir Kabir Nanak, Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, H.B.M. Iqbal
and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) president Hasanul Haque Inu have
been included in the charge sheet of the case filed by Jamaat.
Apart from Nizami, Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general Ali Ahsan
Mujahid and Hemayet Uddin are among the 10 Jamaat leaders included
in the charge sheet.
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