Heated debate in JS over BDR issue
Staff Correspondent
The parliamentary discussion on obituary motion on slain BDR officials turned into a
blame game yesterday with treasury and opposition bench lawmakers blasting each other.
Even Leader of the House Sheikh Hasina and Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia joined in and set a bizarre example of an obituary motion discussion in parliamentary.
The House, however, unanimously adopted the motion at 10:00pm ending the unscheduled long discussion. The discussion, which turned into a debate, began around 4:00pm and 27 lawmakers including Hasina and Khaleda took part.
The sitting was adjourned twice for 35 minuets for Asr and Maghrib prayers.
Wearing black badges, the lawmakers joined the House to mourn the deaths of army officials and a few civilians who were victims of the BDR mutiny.
When the parliament adopted the resolution, the atmosphere of mourning existed little due to the attack and counter attack of the treasury and opposition lawmakers' against each other.
The speaker tabled the written questions and answers of question-answer session yesterday and adjourned other things scheduled in the order of the day. Piloting the obituary reference, Speaker Abdul Hamid proposed a short discussion with participation only of Leader of the House Sheikh Hasina and Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia.
The speaker gave the floor to Khaleda Zia to say something on obituary motion. But, Khaleda Zia, who appeared for the second time in the ninth parliament yesterday, demanded the speaker allows other lawmakers to speak first on the motion.
Following Khaleda's demand, the speaker allowed other lawmakers to join the discussion.
However, Khaleda later blamed the speaker for allowing the discussion to go on.
Referring to the speech of BNP lawmaker Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, Awami League (AL) lawmaker Tofail Ahmed said,
"The way he laughed and mocked in the House, their [the deceased people's] departed souls would be hurt. People were also dissatisfied."
"Who has benefited from today's discussion?" Tofail said.
None of the previous parliaments witnessed such a long discussion on obituary motion. Usually a handful of senior lawmakers take part in the brief discussion on obituary motion to pay tribute to those for whom the motion was placed.
The speaker had interrupted opposition lawmaker Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury for making a statement against another lawmaker since the speaker would not allow the lawmaker to defend his position during the obituary motion.
The August 15, 1975, killing of Bangabandhu family, jail killing on November 3, 1975, killing of army officials in court martial during the regime of Ziaur Rahman, the August 21, 2004, grenade attack on an AL rally and the August 17, 2005, countrywide bomb blasts were raised among other issues during the discussion.
The opposition lawmakers criticised the government steps taken to handle the BDR crisis. They accused the government of going soft on mutineers while treasury bench lawmakers defended the government moves.
"It is unfortunate," an AL lawmaker described the unscheduled discussion. He questioned whether the army senior officials who were brutally killed were respected at all in the discussion.
AL lawmaker Suranjit Sengupta said he had not seen such an instance in parliament before. He suggested that the speaker expunge the entire discussion leaving alone the speeches of Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia.
"We do not know why the leader of the opposition wanted discussion on the obituary motion. What did she want?" Sengupta said.
Referring to former BNP-led alliance government's indifference to probing and holding trials of the August 21 grenade attack case, Sengupta said, "They came here today with the same mentality. They did not come here with sympathy."
BNP lawmaker MK Anwar, however, put the blame on the speaker for letting the discussion be held. He said the speaker himself suggested that only the leader of the House and the leader of the opposition should speak on the obituary motion.
The treasury and opposition bench lawmakers, however, described the massacre as a planned conspiracy to weaken the country's defence forces and demanded quick trial to ensure exemplary punishment of the perpetrators.
Taking part in the discussion, Commerce Minister Faruk Khan said the government has already collected a lot of information. "We know who sent SMS [texted] to BDR members asking them not to surrender arms. We know who brought out procession encouraging the BDR butchers," the commerce minister said urging the prime minister to handle the situation with an iron fist. "None will be spared," Faruk said.
Citing some military operations and their causality figures in neighbouring countries, the
commerce minister said those who are talking about military operations do not know the nature of such operations.
The House adopted the obituary motion on the deaths of one major general, one brigadier general, 17 colonel, 11 Lt Colonel, 17 Major and one captain brutally killed by jawans of BDR during a mutiny at BDR headquarters on February 25-26.
Referring to the latest information, the obituary motion said 72 army officials are still missing. Work on recovering and identifying them is going on. The names of the missing and their details will be made available on completion of the recovery task.
When all the names of the deceased will be available, the names will be included in the obituary motion which will be published as a book and sent to the families of the slain army officials.
The House also expressed condolences to the deaths of civilians in the carnage.
The Daily Star - Details News
_____________________________________________________________
Anyone missed it?
