BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi has released a correction of his statement over the removal of Sheikh Mujib’s portrait from the Drabar Hall of Bangabhaban.
“News is being published about my statement where I was quoted as saying Sheikh Mujib’s photo should not have been removed from Bangabhaban. I thought the photo was removed from Bangabhaban’s Darbar Hall, where all the presidents’ pictures are kept, but [I later came to know] the photo was removed from some other office room,” clarified Rizvi in a second statement today (12 November).
“Sheikh Hasina’s fascist regime had made it mandatory to display Sheikh Mujib’s portrait. Fascist laws cannot have any effectiveness. Signs of misrule should not be kept everywhere in offices and courts. I apologise for the unwanted statement,” reads the statement.
Earlier in the day he said, it was inappropriate to remove Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s picture from the Darbar Hall of Bangabhaban.
“I think his [Sheikh Mujib’s] portrait should not have been taken down. After 15 August, 1975, Khandaker Mushtaq took down Sheikh Mujib’s portrait. Ziaur Rahman came to power on 7 November through the Sepoy-Janata Revolution.
“Ziaur Rahman put up Sheikh Mujib’s picture again in Bangabhaban,” he said while addressing the opening ceremony of a free medical camp at BNP’s central office in Nayapaltan, Dhaka this morning.
Earlier, in a Facebook post yesterday (11 November), Mahfuj Alam, an advisor to the interim government, wrote, “The photo of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman—Post ’71 Fascist—has been removed from the Darbar Hall. It is a shame that we couldn’t remove his pictures from Bangabhaban after the 5th of August.”