Former Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina.
Credit: Reuters Photo
New Delhi: Muhammad Yunus will be brought to justice soon, Bangladesh’s deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said in another virtual address from India, accusing the chief advisor of the interim government, which succeeded her government on August 5, and others of masterminding the murder of activist Abu Sayed during the agitation against reservation in jobs.
Hasina targeted Yunus for the second time in a week even as the interim government led by the economist in Dhaka said that it would ask New Delhi to extradite her to Bangladesh, where she has been named accused in several cases, including quite a few related to the killings of student and youth activists during the protests against reservation in government jobs in July and August this year.
She delivered a virtual address from India at an event held by her Awami League’s supporters in London. She accused Yunus and others of masterminding the killing of student and youth activists during the agitation in order to ratchet up public anger against her and topple her government.
Hasina said that she, during her tenure as the prime minister, had never ordered firing on the protesters and police had fired rubber bullets to disperse mobs during the protests against her government.
She accused Yunus of masterminding the murder of Abu Sayed, a student activist, who had been killed during the clash between police and the protesters in front of his alma mater Begum Rokeya University at Rangpur in Bangladesh on July 16. His death added fuel to the fire and intensified the agitation, leading to the fall of Hasina’s Awami League government.
Hasina slammed Yunus and his government for the persecution of religious minority communities in Bangladesh. She also said that Yunus would be brought to justice and a new dawn would soon end the darkness in her country.
A military aircraft had flown Hasina to the Indian Air Force base at Hindon in the National Capital Region of India just hours before hundreds of protesters stormed her official residence – Gana Bhavan – in the capital of Bangladesh on August 5.
Yunus took over as the chief advisor of the interim government three days later.
Hasina and her close aides, as well as several Awami League leaders and activists have been implicated in multiple criminal cases over the past few months, including ones related to the murders, abductions, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) issued arrest warrants against Hasina and 45 others in connection with alleged crimes against humanity committed during the July-August protests against the Awami League government on November 26. The ICT had been set up by the Awami League government led by Hasina, herself, in 2009 to investigate and prosecute the suspects for the genocide committed by people who had been loyal to the Pakistan Army during the 1971 war for liberation of East Pakistan into Bangladesh.
Yunus’s interim government in Dhaka said that when the legal proceedings against Hasina would reach a certain stage and her presence in the courts would be required, it would invoke Bangladesh’s extradition treaty with India and ask New Delhi to repatriate the former prime minister to stand trial in her country.
Hasina’s virtual address to the Awami League event in London on Sunday was her second after she similarly delivered a speech at an event in New York a few days back, criticising Yunus and his interim government in Bangladesh. The ICT then imposed a ban on publishing her statements in Bangladesh.