Tarique Rahman, the acting chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party(BNP) visited Dhaka University on Saturday to offer prayers at the grave of student leader Sharif Osman Hadi amid tight security.
32-year old Sharif Osman Hadi died earlier this month.
Rahman, 60, also paid his respects at the nearby grave of Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bangladesh’s national poet, and a freedom fighter for India’s independence, located beside the Dhaka University Central Mosque.
Observers saw the move as a bid by Rahman to take on the mantle of the July-August 2024 student revolt against Awami League’s rule. Hadi, who belonged to a fringe party called Inquilab Moncho which had been part of the student led “revolt” against Sheikh Hasina, was buried last week by his student supporters in a grave besides Nazrul’s tomb.
Hadi was shot on December 12 by unknown assailants, he was airlifted to Singapore General Hospital on December 15 and later died three days laater. Student leaders have claimed the killers had fled to India and made anti-India comments at rallies, though the authorities refuted these claims. Mobs have tried to attack Indian missions in Bangladesh as well as target secular cultural institutions like Chhayanaut as well as newspapers like ‘Daily Star’ and ‘Prothom Alo’ (First Light).
Authorities halted vehicular and pedestrian traffic on both sides of the road from Shahbagh to the university during the visit. Members of the Rapid Action Battalion, Border Guard Bangladesh and the police were deployed along the route.
Earlier on Thursday, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Tarique Rahman returned to Dhaka to a rapturous welcome by lakhs of his followers, after spending 17 years in exile in London. On his arrival, he promised that he wants, “Peace in this country”.
Travelling in a bulletproof vehicle, part of a slow-moving cavalcade with three layers of security, Rahman reached the site of a massive rally organised by his party at Dhaka’s Purbachal area, as a slogan-shouting crowd went into a frenzy at the sight of their leader.
Referring to the recent death of Osman Hadi, Tarique Rahman had said, “To repay the blood of those martyred in ’71 and ’24, we must build the Bangladesh they envisioned.”
The return of the leader, son of Begum Zia and late President Gen Zia Ur-Rahman, is seen as a significant moment in the country’s turbulent political landscape.
Rahman, who had gone into self-imposed exile after criminal cases were slapped on him, had been hesitating a return despite the Mohammad Yunus-led interim administration withdrawing all cases pending against him.
However, observers say realisation that staying out of the electoral contest slated for February may give his party’s main rival Jamaat-i-Islami an upper hand has finally convinced him to take the risk of a return despite several terrorist organisations surfacing in the country and killing of lesser leaders by unknown assailants.
Since the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government last August, Bangladesh’s politics has been marked by frequent street unrest, with Islamist-led mobs often dominating public spaces.
The Awami League, which has led the country to independence and ruled between 2009-2024, has been banned from contesting the elections, and many of the party’s leaders are either incarcerated or have fled to sanctuaries abroad.
The BNP, meanwhile, has faced its own challenges, with the party’s image dented by allegations of extortion and lawlessness involving its grassroots cadres in several parts of the country.
Historically, Awami League and BNP have been the dominant parties with vote shares ranging between 25-40 per cent, while Jamaat has enjoyed between 5-12 per cent vote share.
Rahman’s re-entry into active politics is expected to reshape opposition strategy and could further intensify political contestation in the months ahead.
