Party chiefs are being tried by their own followers

The recovery of Taka 20 crore bribe money, taken to protect Shafayat Sobhan of the Basundhara Group from murder charges, taken by former State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfuzzaman Babar in pursuance of his statements given to the joint forces after his arrest is just an example of how cruel they were as they ran for fortune making when they were in power. He has also admitted the suppression of the case against abduction of businessman Jamaluddin Chowdhury of Chittagong whose skeleton was later recovered.

Babar has disclosed the taking of 10 million dollars extortion from the Dhabi Group to extend T&T facilities to its mobile phone company Warid, and that a lion's share of this amount to Arafat Rahman, the second son of former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia.

Babar who rose to prominence through his acquaintance with the Hawa Bhaban office of the BNP chairperson also told interrogators that a lion's share of the extortion money that used to be collected during the last five years of their rule went to Hawa Bhaban that was under the control of Tarique Rahman.

The average citizens continue to be stunned by startling confessional statements given by Awami League general secretary Abdul Jalil about collection of monthly extortion money by himself and his party chief Sheikh Hasina from the Basundhara Group. His arrest led to his narration of a detailed story on the 'trump card' episode of April 2004 which was a ploy to buy off 70 BNP MPs for as many crores of Taka with a view to bringing down the government.

He said he was not responsible for hatching the conspiracy supported by a number of businessmen including former FBCCI chiefs Abdul Awal Minto, Salman F Rahman and Manzoor Elahi, but at one stage of the anti-government agitation the matter came out as a slip of tongue from his mouth and its entire responsibility fell on him.

Abdul Jalil admitted the sale of party nominations for parliamentary elections for huge amounts of money, and also narrated how some directors of the Mercantile Bank also made him a director and finally chairman of the bank by donating money. He disclosed the operation of syndicates comprising business people belonging to both the Awami League and the BNP which used to manipulate prices of different essentials. The syndicate members included Haji Selim, Abdul Hasim, Yousuf Abdullah Haroon, he told investigators.

The AL general secretary said that leading NGO Proshikha's executive director Quazi Faruque Ahmed had pledged to bring ten lakh people from all over the country to Dhaka on April 30, 2004 and paralyse the city to bring down the government under the aborted trump card plan.

Former minister Sheikh Selim told the joint interrogation cell that he had collected five lakh dollars extortion from the East Coast company for a part of work of the Siddhirganj power plant. He used to draw Taka two lakh from Basundhara Group per month and the AL chief Taka 20 lakh a month. Basundhara Group paid former minister Mirza Abbas Taka 25 lakh and presented Harris Chowdhury, Tofael Ahmed and the AL chief one bigha of land each as gift.

Shiekh Selim also disclosed that money on behalf of the party chief used to be collected by Kazi Zafarullah, Salman F Rahman and Sheikh Helal. The former health minister told joint forces that Awami Juba League leaders Jahangir Kabir Nanak and Mirza Azam were behind setting fire to a BRTC double-decker bus near the Dhaka Sheraton in 2004, that had caused the death of 11 passengers. According to him, former AL MP Kamal Majumder had organised the violence in garment factories last year, and AL worker Murad Jang created the trouble at the Savar Export Processing Zone.

There remains the stories of how little known Giasuddin Mamun became a billionaire in five years just by virture of his being a close friend of Tarique Rahman, eldest son of Begum Khaleda Zia and senior joint secretary general of the BNP.

The harrowing tales that are coming out of the mouths of these leaders were difficult to believe even the other day when they were at large. Had the joint forces not swung into action none would have even dared utter a word about these episodes of corrupt deals by them.

The people are happy at the progress of the drive against corruption but did not know before the magnitude of the shady deals pursued by these public figures by taking advantage of the privileges that are associated with the offices that they had been elected to. Average citizens are thankful of the armed forces for exposure of the graft cases and look forward to punishment of their perpetrators.