Hats off to Naziur Rahman

By Ahmad Niaz, Dhaka
30 January 2004, 18:00 PM
Finally it was Mr. Naziur Rahman Manjur, Chairman of the BJP, who showed his guts to sharply retort to the objection made by the Jamaat General Secretary Ali Ahsan Mujahid to the former's reminding the prime minister of her commitment to hang the portrait of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in government offices, while she met the party chiefs of the coalition. "You (Jamaat) are controversial as razakars for your opposition to the War of Liberation, you don't have any right to suggest anything about Bangabandhu," Mr. Manjur is quoted as saying (DS Jan 15).

The Jamaat leaders with the patronisation of the BNP are at the helm of affairs of the nation state called Bangladesh, which they know it well came into being because of the indefatigable struggle of Bangabandhu. They are now sharing the slice of the cake, but they cannot brook and forget the secession from their beloved Pakistan, for what they make Bangabandhu solely liable. So during the whole nine months of the liberation war they, the razakars, resisted Bangladesh being liberated from the clutches of Pakistanis. They betrayed with the people by helping the Pakistani marauders to carry out genocide, loot and devastate our wealth, get our mothers and sisters raped, and finally emasculate us by killing our intellectuals just two days ahead of our victory.

It was Bangabandhu, so great a man of head and heart that as President of the Republic he spared them from being eliminated by granting general amnesty. And that helped them to come out of their hideouts, later reinstated and flourished in religious bent of politics that we witnessed in the post-75 era.

Under the present coalition regime although the detesting word 'razakar' is much less used in insinuations, its pungency is entrenched in the heart of every freedom loving man. Mr. Naziur Rahman owes our thanks and gratitude for his bold utterance.