B'desh govt calls reports on cancellation of Mujibur Rahman's freedom fighter status 'baseless'
Dhaka (PTI): Bangladesh's interim government on Wednesday dismissed as "completely baseless" and "misleading" the media reports that claimed it has dropped the "Father of the Nation" title for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and revised the definition of freedom fighter.
The news published in several media outlets that the freedom fighter recognition of over 100 leaders, including President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Acting President Nazrul Islam and Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmed of the Mujibnagar government has been revoked is "completely baseless, false and misleading," the Chief Adviser's office said in a post on X.
The provisional government constituted at Mujibnagar to conduct the Bangladesh Liberation War in April 1971 is popularly known as the Mujibnagar government.
Adviser to the Ministry of Liberation War Affairs Faruk-e-Azam clarified that those who were in the Mujibnagar government were also freedom fighters.
"Those who fought the liberation war with arms, those who led it, were freedom fighters. However, the officials and employees of that government were associate freedom fighters," he said.
According to the National Freedom Fighters Council (JAMUKA) Ordinance, diplomats including the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra are associate freedom fighters, he said, adding that being associate does not mean that their honour has been tarnished.
He said that the definition of the freedom fighter that existed in 1972 has been implemented. It was changed in 2018 and 2022.
The "honour, status, and privileges" of both freedom fighters and their associates will remain the same, he added.
Citing a government statement, the state-run BSS news agency on Wednesday reported that the gazette of the “National Freedom Fighters Council (Amendment) Ordinance, 2025” published on Tuesday clearly states that all members of the Mujibnagar government will be recognised as "heroic freedom fighters".
A few days ago, the Muhammad Yunus-led government dropped the portrait of the country’s founding father and deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s father Mujibur Rahman from new currency notes.
Earlier, the Dhaka Tribune newspaper reported that the interim government has amended the National Freedom Fighters Council Act, "altering" the definition of freedom fighter. The amendment to the law also "modifies the term 'Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman'”, it added.
Bdnews24.com news portal reported that the "words 'Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman' and portions of the law that mentioned the name of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman have been deleted."
The Daily Star newspaper reported that the ordinance also makes slight changes to the definition of the Liberation War. "The new definition of Liberation War drops the name of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The previous one mentioned that the war was waged responding to Bangabandhu's call for independence," it said.
According to the revised ordinance, all MNAs (members of the national assembly) and MPAs (members of the provincial assembly) associated with the Mujibnagar Government, who were later considered members of the erstwhile constituent assembly, will now be categorised as “associates of the Liberation War”, the Dhaka Tribune said.
Until now, they were recognised as freedom fighters.
The ordinance redefines Liberation War as the armed struggle carried out between March 26 and December 16, 1971, by the people of Bangladesh aiming to establish a sovereign democratic state founded on equality, human dignity and social justice, against the occupying Pakistani armed forces and their collaborators, the Dhaka Tribune reported.
In January, the interim government introduced new textbooks for primary and secondary students for the 2025 academic year that state that Ziaur Rahman, who was an Army major and later a sector commander of the Liberation War, declared the country’s independence in 1971, replacing the previous ones crediting founding father Mujibur Rahman with the declaration.
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Excise policy case: HC gives more time to Kejriwal, Sisodia to respond to ED plea to expunge remarks
New Delhi (PTI): The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted time till April 2 to former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and 21 others to respond to a plea by the Enforcement Directorate to expunge "unwarranted" remarks made against it by the trial court while discharging them in the liquor policy case.
Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma expressed displeasure over the request for more time by the lawyers appearing for Kejriwal and other accused, and said it would fix a date for final hearing in the matter during the next hearing on April 2.
"I don't know why you are not filing a reply. You should have filed a reply if you think you really needed to file a reply. They are only saying judge should not have written something that he has written."
"By second (of April), you file your reply. Then we will fix a date for final hearing," the judge said.
The Enforcement Directorate's counsel said there was no need to file replies to its petition and that this was an attempt to delay the case.
Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing for ED, contended that the agency's petition has no impact on the accused, as the challenge was limited to the trial court judge's observations against the agency when it discharged Kejriwal, Sisodia and others in the CBI case.
The counsel for one of the accused said a brief reply was necessary and time was needed for it as the discharge order was 600 pages long.
Justice Sharma remarked that the ED's case has nothing to do with all 600 pages.
"Here is a prosecuting agency which has stated that the judge exceeded jurisdiction. I told them even I make such observations. I need to deicide it but you said I need to file a reply. Now you say 600 pages have to be read," the judge observed.
Raju also urged the court to direct that the observations of the trial court would not be relied upon by the accused in related proceedings. "It is a short date. Let them reply," the court responded.
On March 10, the court had asked Kejriwal and others to respond to the ED's plea.
In the petition, ED said the trial court's remarks were wholly extraneous to the CBI's case. It said the ED was neither a party in those proceedings nor afforded any opportunity to be heard.
"If such sweeping, unguided, bald observations are permitted to stand ... grave and irreparable prejudice would be caused to the public at large as well as the petitioner," the ED plea said.
"Therefore, the aforesaid paragraphs which concern the investigation independently conducted by the Enforcement Directorate under the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) deserve to be expunged as it amounts to a clear case of judicial overreach...," it added.
On February 27, the trial court discharged Kejriwal, Sisodia and others in the Delhi liquor policy case, pulling up the CBI by saying that its case was wholly unable to survive judicial scrutiny and stood discredited in its entirety.
The trial court ruled that the alleged conspiracy was nothing more than a speculative construct resting on conjecture and surmise, devoid of any admissible evidence.
To compel the accused to face the rigours of a full-fledged criminal trial in the stark absence of any legally admissible material did not serve the ends of justice, it said.
In its order, the trial court highlighted that a procedure permitting prolonged or indefinite incarceration based on a provisional and untested allegation risked "degenerating into a punitive process" and raised a "concern of considerable constitutional significance" where individual liberty was "imperilled" by invoking the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
It said the issue assumed heightened significance where an accused was arrested for the offence of money laundering and thereafter required to surmount the stringent twin conditions prescribed for the grant of bail, resulting in prolonged incarceration even at the pre-trial stage.
It further said that despite the settled legal position that the offence of money laundering cannot independently subsist and requires the foundational edifice of a legally sustainable predicate offence, the prevailing practice revealed a disturbing inversion.
Underlining that the objective of PMLA was undoubtedly legitimate and compelling, the trial judge mentioned that statutory power, however wide, could not eclipse constitutional safeguards.
