Former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
Credit: Reuters Photo
Shillong: Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Salahuddin Ahmed, who has been living in Meghalaya since 2015, on Wednesday claimed that widespread protests in his country were the result of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s “misrule”.
Alleging that the Awami League government led by Hasina was responsible for his “disappearance” from Bangladesh nine years ago, he said he now hopes to return home.
Ahmed, who had served as the communications minister from 2001 to 2006 when the BNP was in power, earlier claimed he was abducted from Bangladesh and had no idea how he reached Shillong in May 2015.
"The mass movement was the result of misrule for three consecutive terms, flawed elections and absence of the rule of law. It was her (Hasina’s) fate,” the BNP leader claimed.
Hasina resigned as the Bangladesh Prime Minister on August 5 following massive anti-government protests.
"People of Bangladesh strongly believe that Sheikh Hasina was responsible for my disappearance from my country," Ahmed told a group of journalists here.
To a question, he said he hopes to return home in the wake of the “positive” development in his country.
He said his party is at the moment concerned with the health of their leader Begum Khaleda Zia.
The BNP chairperson, currently undergoing treatment for various ailments, was released from house arrest on an executive order from President Mohammed Shahabuddin on Tuesday.
Ahmed was found loitering at Golflinks area of Shillong on May 11, 2015, reportedly two months after he went missing in Dhaka. The police arrested him on the charge of trespassing into the country without valid documents.
In 2018, a local court acquitted him of the charge of illegally entering India. In February this year, the court of the additional deputy commissioner here upheld the 2018 order of acquittal.