BartaBangla Report :: BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Friday said party senior vice chairman Tarique Rahman will be back home from London as soon as he fully recovers from his illness.
“I had a talk with BNP senior vice chairman Tarique Rahman in London. I enquired about his physical condition which has improved significantly. He’ll return home soon after his full recovery,” he said.
The BNP spokesman came up with the remarks while talking to reporters at HazratShahjalalInternationalAirport on his arrival in Dhaka from London after attending a seminar.
Replying to a question, Fakrul, however, said Tarique will actively take part in politics only after getting nod from his physicians.
On July 15, a six-member BNP delegation, led by Fakhrul, went to London to attend a seminar on democracy good governance and human rights in Bangladesh arranged by the House of Lords.
During his meeting with Tarique, Fakhrul said they discussed the country’s overall political situation and party activities.
Asked whether the next general election issue came up for their discussion at the meeting, the BNP leader replied in the negative, saying some local newspapers published cooked-up reports in this regard.
Sought comments about the verdicts of the Internationals Crimes Tribunals against Jamaat former chief Ghulam Azam and secretary general Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid, Fakhrul declined to talk about it. “I won’t make any comment about the verdicts.”
Tarique, who has been living in London since 2008, faces over a dozen of criminal cases, including that of money laundering.
On September 11, 2008, eight days after his release from jail on bail, Tarique Rahman left for London for treatment relinquishing his party portfolio (senior joint secretary general of BNP), the day her mother, BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, was freed from detention during the military-backed caretaker government.
Tarique, arrested on March 7, 2007, was freed from jail on bail on September 3, 2008.
However, in December 2009, when he had been abroad for over a year, Tarique was made party’s senior vice-chairman with a clear mandate to lead the BNP in the absence of his mother.
On May 26, a Dhaka court issued a warrant for the arrest of Tarique in a money-laundering case and asked the government to take necessary steps to bring him back with the help of Interpol, a week after he addressed a meeting, and urged the Bangladeshi expatriates to mount pressure on the government to restore the caretaker government system.