The people of Bangladesh gave a historic mandate in the elections held on Thursday, February 12, by choosing the Tarique Rahman-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party to form the new government in the country after twenty years.
Among the people who won their way to Bangladesh’s Parliament in the February 12 polls were also three who were earlier facing grave charges and even death sentences under the rule of the now-ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
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However, all three of them had walked out of jail after the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government took charge of the country after Hasina’s ouster. Out of these three, two reportedly even faced anti-India terror cases.
From death penalty to now Bangladesh’s Parliament
The three leaders who saw their fate turn in the Bangladesh polls are BNP’s Lutfozzaman Babar and Abdus Salam Pintu and Azharul Islam from the Jamaat-e-Islami. All three of them were sentenced to death under Hasina’s rule.
Lutfozzaman Babar
When Tarique Rahman’s mother Khaleda Zia served as Bangladesh’s PM with BNP in coalition with Jamaat from 2001 to 2006, Babar served as the State Minister of Home Affairs. In February 12 polls, Babar won the Netrokona-4 seat in north-central Bangladesh.
However, in 2018, Babar was sentenced to death in the August 21 grenade attack cases filed in 2004, reported the Daily Star. Before that, he was sentenced to death on January 30, 2014, in connection with two cases filed over the 10-truck arms cases, the report added.
Under this case, the weapons were seized at Chittagong in April 2004 and they were meant for rebel groups in India’s Northeast with an aim to destabilize the country, Major General Gaganjit Singh told India Today in an interview in 2023, adding that the arms were being supplied by the BNP-Jamaat alliance which was in power in Bangladesh at the time.
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Earlier this year in January, Babar was freed from jail after he spent 17 years in prison.
Abdus Salam Pintu
Abdus Salam Pintu, another BNP member, also served as a cabinet minister under Khaleda Zia’s rule from 2001-2006 and won from the Tangail-2 seat in the February 12 polls. However, Pintu was also given a death sentence for the 2004 grenade attack in Dhaka but walked out of jail after Hasina’s ouster.
Pintu also allegedly supported Pak-based terror group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) which is responsible for various terror attacks in India,reported India Today.
ATM Azharul Islam
Jamaat leader ATM Azharul Islam secured victory in Rangpur-2 in northern Bangladesh.ATM Azharul Islam in the February 12 polls, however, he also once faced death row. In December 2014, Islam was sentenced to death on three charges including murder, arson, torture, and others.