Two principal Bangladeshi students’ leaders, who were at the forefront of their movement against the Sheikh Hasina regime, received full approval directly from interim authority Chief Advisor Mohammad Yunus to go public with their outbursts against Army chief General Waqer-uz-Zaman, at least two key government officials have confirmed to Northeast News.
Speaking strictly on the condition of anonymity, the two officials revealed that the contents of a Facebook post by Hasnat Abdullah two days ago and the televised interview of Asif Mahmud Shajib Bhuiyan were made public with Yunus’ “full knowledge, clearance and approval”.
While earlier today, Gen Zaman met President Shahabuddin Chuppu to apprise him of the political and law and order situation across Bangladesh, three advisors (led by Asif Nazrul) in the Yunus-led interim dispensation met DGFI Director General Major General Jahangir Alam for at least four hours.
Both Abdullah and Bhuiyan had hit out against Gen Zaman on March 21 – ten days after they met with the Army chief in which the latter had involved the duo in a conversation – reportedly at his Dhaka cantonment residence – over the return of the Awami League in Bangladesh’s political and electoral reality.
What remains a puzzle, however, is the two students’ silence for 10 days, which sources are attributing to the time taken to share the details and ensuing discussions with their foreign handlers abroad and their realisation that the Army top brass was in no mood to relent, especially after Gen Zaman had sent out a stern warning to the Students’ Against Discrimination late last month.
Abdullah wrote in the FB post that there was a plan afoot to “bring in a refined Awami League” under the leadership of former minister Saber Hossain Chowdhury, former Speaker Shirin Sharmin and Sheikh Fazle Noor Tapas. On his part, Bhuiyan said in a televised interview that the “main veto by the Army chief was why a person (Mohammad Yunus) against whom there were criminal cases, should be the first choice as the chief advisor”.
These outbursts not only exposed the faultlines within the students’ community but also brought out in sharp relief the cracks in the ties between the chief advisor and the students’ coordinators. Bhuiyan’s ‘revelations’, said to be motivated entirely against Yunus, can potentially lead to a collapse of the interim authority and expose the chief advisor to more attacks from other political quarters, including the BNP.
Bangladeshi political analysts said that the Army which “stands behind Gen Zaman” will not take too kindly to these two revelations at a time when the country’s politics is at an “inflection point” where it can go “any which way”. There is every possibility, the analysts said, that the students will return to the war path and mount a vicious campaign against the much respected and feared Army.
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A day after the coordinated revelations by Abdullah and Bhuiyan, hardline Islamists and anti-India politicians such as advocate Asaduzzaman Fuad, who remains under the scanner of security agencies, launched attacks against Gen Waqer-uz-Zaman.
At street meetings in Dhaka, Fuad poured vitriol against the Army chief, accusing him of “conspiring anew to establish a new interim government with the blessings of the President (Mohammad Shahabuddin Chuppu)”.
Fuad went on to describe Chuppu as “another of Sheikh Hasina’s slave dogs” and other foul adjectives.
