Birthday: Report on Khaleda’s arrest April 25

Staff Correspondent: A Dhaka court has set April 25 to submit report over BNP Chairperson’s Khaleda Zia’s arrest issued in a case filed against her for celebrating a “fake” birthday on August 15, observed as National Mourning Day marking the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members in 1975.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Khurshid Alam fixed the day as Gulshan police did not submit it on Sunday.

Metropolitan Magistrate of Dhaka Md Mazharul Islam issued the arrest warrant in the case on November 17, 2016.

Earlier on August 30, 2016, Gazi Zahirul Islam, former joint general secretary of the Dhaka Union of Journalists (DUJ), filed the case with the court of Mazharul Islam.

The complainant wrote in the case statement that Khaleda's actual date of birth was not August 15 but she celebrates her birthday on that date every year to undermine and dishonour Bangabandhu.

He also submitted copies of Khaleda's passport, marriage certificate and mark sheets of exams taken prior to leaving school as well as a 1991 news report on her biography run by national daily Dainik Bangla.

The former premier started the celebrations cutting a cake at her Minto Road residence from 1996, when she stepped down from power. In the past couple of years, she had been doing so in the early hours at her Gulshan office.
 

risingbd/Dhaka/March 25, 2018/Mamun Khan/A K Azad