Hasina snubs Khaleda for charter remarks

Dhaka, July 14 (bdnews24.com)?Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has derided opposition chief Khaleda Zia's remark that she will throw the amended constitution out once in power.

The nation does not expect such 'indecent' remarks about the 'sacred' constitution, she said on Thursday.

"It is only natural for the opposition leader to deliver such speech as her husband [Ziaur Rahman] trampled the constitution by usurping power," Hasina said at a programme of the newly elected officers of the Institution of Diploma Engineers (IDE).

The BNP chairperson on Wednesday said the recent amendments to the constitution were Awami League's own agenda, so her party would throw them away once in office.

The amendment to the constitution made on June 30 annulled the caretaker government system, introduced through the 13th amendment in 1996. The main opposition, from the very beginning, has been protesting the move.

Hasina reiterated that the BNP and its key ally Jamaat were trying to hinder the ongoing trials of the 'war criminals, grenade assailants, money-launderers and corrupt'.

In the ongoing trial of war crimes, five top leaders of the BNP and two others of Jamaat-e-Islami are currently facing charges.

Khaleda's elder son Tarique Rahman is currently facing charges for money laundering while younger son Arafat Rahman Coco has been convicted for a similar crime. Tarique, also BNP's senior vice-chairman, has 14 cases against him on charges of corruption and extortion. Two arrest warrants have been issued for him in the Aug 21, 2004 grenade attack.

The prime minister pointed out that the trial of Pakistani occupation army's collaborators had begun following the 1971 war. "Citizenship of many people was scrapped and a number of others were arrested too.

"But it was Ziaur Rahman who had freed those 'war criminals' and also rehabilitated them in politics by a military order. Many of them went on to become ministers and MPs," she added.

After gaining independence on Dec 16, 1971, the government of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had taken initiatives to try the local collaborators.

Some 37,471 collaborators, mainly comprising the Razakar, Al-Badr and Al-Shams militias, were detained, and the trial of 2,848 people was completed by Oct 31, 1973. The court sentenced 752 to death.

Some 26,000 were freed under a general amnesty announced on Nov 30, 1973. But those accused of killing, rape, loot, arson and abduction were not granted amnesty.

Proceedings for the trial of around 11,000 accused were underway after the amnesty, but the process was halted after Sheikh Mujib's killing in 1975.

Despite trying them subsequently, Hasina alleged, Ziaur Rahman appointed some of them as Bangladesh's ambassadors in several countries.

"His [Ziaur Rahman] wife Khaleda Zia made Bangabandhu's murderer Col Rashid the opposition leader and another assassinator Huda an MP through the Feb 15 election without any voter," she said.

The prime minister said the imposition of martial law killed the spirit of Liberation War embedded in the constitution. "The politics of capturing power through killings and coup started since then."

She said her government reinstated the spirit of the Liberation War in the charter through the 15th Amendment.

"It was possible for us to do as people fetched a huge victory to the grand-alliance government through voting in the last general election," she said and thanked the people for their gesture.

State minister for science and information and communications technology Yeafesh Osman, IDE president A K M A Hamid and general secretary Mohammad Shamsur Rahman also spoke on the occasion.

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