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DHAKA: According to local media, a Bangladeshi court on Thursday charged 18 people, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her daughter Saima Wazed Putul included, for corruption concerning a plot allotment under the Purbachal New Town plan, and issued an arrest warrant against them. Dhaka City senior special judge, Zakir Hossain, after considering the chargesheet submitted by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), issued the order on Thursday. The court also set a date for the progress report regarding the arrest warrant execution which is set for May 5.
In another incident under the same corruption umbrella, a charge sheet was also put forward for 23 others which include Sheikh Hasina, Sheikh Rehana as well as four more members of her family, Bangladesh’s leading daily Prothom Alo has previously mentioned, quoting Dhaka court sources. The ex-PM stands accused in six pending cases related to administrative corruption in the allocation of plots in the Purbachal New Town project.
A tribunal in Bangladesh last month sanctioned an arrest warrant for Hasina, along with several others including the former Inspector General of Police, Benazir Ahmed, for alleged mass killing during the Shapla Chattar incident in 2013. In early January, another tribunal in Dhaka initiated proceedings to issue an arrest warrant for Hasina alongside 11 others for cases of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
In what can only be described as ironic, this tribunal was set up under the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act by Hasina herself alongside her administration, and is meant to ascertain the criminal genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, alongside other international crimes that were perpetrated on the Bangladeshi people by the Pakistani Army in collusion with local collaborators during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971.
Uproarious political vendetta stemming from the interim government headed by Muhammad Yunus is how most experts are perceiving the actions, as numerous cases were filled against the former PM and her followers on petty accusations right after she was removed from power in August of 2024. Leading the fight for restoration of democracy in the nation, Hasina, the daughter of the country’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was forced to make a disgraceful exit from the country seeking refuge in India on the 5th of August.
The exiled Bangladeshi Prime Minister accused the Yunus headed interim government for shifting the country focus to being a terrorism and law and order hotbed while addressing Awami League supporters online from India in February. She also promised to return to the country assuring to help families enduring suffering and promised to deliver justice.
If Yunus admitted that he doesn’t have the slightest experience in administering a nation, she went on, “Why are you doing it?” Hasina further quotes: "Yunus has no experience of running a government. He quenched all the inquisitorial committees and set the terrorists loose to slaughter civilians. They are ruining the Bangladesh. We will get rid of this terrorist regime."
"I will return. The men responsible will be dealt with in Bangladesh. They will meet their fate in Bangladesh. That is perhaps the reason Allah has preserved my life,’ she further stated.”
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