BANGLADESH

Charge hearing against Khaleda Zia in two cases on March 3

The court has fixed March 3 for hearing of charges in two cases filed against BNP chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia.

The new date has been set for framing charges in two defamation cases filed against her for celebrating a “fake” birthday and “tarnishing” the Liberation War.

Dhaka Additional Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Asaduzzaman Noor’s court on Thursday was scheduled to hear the charges in two cases. Lawyer Masud Ahmed Talukder appealed for time as Khaleda Zia is ill. The court granted the application and fixed a new date for the hearing.

According to the case filed for ‘tarnishing’ the Liberation War, the BNP chairperson took over the government after being elected in alliance with Jamaat in the 2001 parliamentary elections. She (Khaleda Zia) made the Razakar-Al-Badr leaders and activists minister-MPs and hoisted the map and national flag of independent Bangladesh in their houses and cars.

AB Siddiqui, president of Jananetri Parishad, filed the defamation suit against Ziaur Rahman and Khaleda Zia in the Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court on November 3, 2016. The court directed the Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Tejgaon Police Station to investigate the matter and take action.

On February 25, 2017, Tejgaon police inspector (investigation) Mashiur Rahman reported that the allegations had been substantiated. Another accused in the case, BNP founder Ziaur Rahman, was acquitted after his death.

It was alleged in a case related to fake birthday celebrations that a report was published in two national dailies in 1997 on multiple birthdays of BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia. The report said, according to the marksheet of the former Prime Minister’s SSC examination, her date of birth was September 5, 1946.

August 19, 1945 was mentioned as her birthday in a report published in a daily with her biography when she was the Prime Minister in 1991. Her marriage certificate states that her birthday was on August 4, 1944. According to the machine readable passport issued in 2001, her birthday was August 5, 1946.

The complaint further said that although her five birthdays were found through various means, nowhere was her birthday found on August 15. In this situation, without celebrating any of the five other birthdays, Khaleda Zia has been celebrating her birthday on August 15, the National Mourning Day — the death anniversary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, since 1996.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button
Close