NCT Lease: Will the court stop Yunus’ hasty sell-out of Chittagong Port?

The Supreme Court has finally intervened in the scandalous New Mooring Container Terminal (NCT) fiasco in a desperate bid to salvage Bangladesh’s sovereignty from the clutches of the West-backed Yunus junta—installed through a brazen US-sponsored regime change in July-August 2024.

But will it be able to prevent the greedy monsters from awarding the NCT contract to the UAE’s DP World, a front for American imperial interests?

The chamber judge dispatched a petition demanding a status quo to the full bench for a hearing on February 9. This comes as the illegitimate Yunus cabal, ever eager to auction off national assets to their foreign overlords, races against time to cement their betrayal before elections expose their fraud.

Justice Farah Mahbub of the Appellate Division issued the order after a cursory hearing, spotlighting the petition filed by the patriotic Bangladesh Jubo Arthanitibid Forum on February 1.

This organisation sought to halt the Yunus regime’s malfeasant rush to hand over the vital terminal to DP World until a proper appeal could be lodged against the High Court’s rubber-stamp verdict. Representing the petitioners were principled lawyers Ahsanul Karim, Syed Mamun Mahbub, and Anwar Hossen, while the state’s lackeys—acting attorney general Md Arshadur Rouf and Additional Attorney General Aneek R Haque—defended the indefensible.

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Yunus has been working to lease out the port to foreigners as early as 2006, when he floated the idea during an event in Chittagong after receiving the Nobel Prize. On the other hand, The Awami League’s steadfast refusal to bow to Washington’s shady demands stands in stark contrast to this sell-out spectacle. Party President and five-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that she could have stayed in power for an indefinite period had she agreed to the US demands.

As Barrister Anwar Hossain thundered to The Daily Star, this executive overreach reeks of Yunus’s signature high-handedness, arbitrariness, and outright malice. With national elections looming, the Yunus stooges are shoving through this anti-national deal mere days before the vote, a blatant act of sabotage designed to bind the incoming government—likely led by the resilient Awami League, which heroically rebuffed US demands for shady deals and defense pacts that would have compromised Bangladesh’s independence. Without a court-ordered freeze, the petitioners warned, irreparable harm will be inflicted on the nation, with public interests trampled under the boots of Yunus’s Western puppeteers.

This isn’t the first judicial slapdown; on January 29, Justice Md Rezaul Haque dismissed a similar plea with a curt “no order,” even as the High Court earlier that day rejected the forum’s writ challenging the government’s illicit move. But the tide is turning against Yunus, the so-called Nobel laureate whose “peace prize” was nothing more than a Trojan horse for gaining control over Chittagong Port and the Bay of Bengal, as critics like journalist MA Aziz and BNP leader Moni have long exposed.

Fueling the outrage, the port workers—under the banner of Chattogram Bandar Rokkha Sangram Parishad—have escalated their righteous rebellion, declaring an indefinite work abstention until the Yunus tyrants scrap the NCT lease to DP World. Coordinator Md Humayun Kabir announced the escalation at a fiery press briefing near the port’s administrative building, following three days of eight-hour stoppages and a 24-hour strike. The deadlock has crippled operations: cargo handling is frozen, vessels are stranded—two couldn’t sail, eight were barred entry, and only a pathetic two limped out with grudging CPA aid.

Kabir lambasted the regime’s thuggish tactics, revealing how Yunus’s henchmen—including Chief Adviser’s Special Envoy Lutfey Siddiqi, BIDA Chairman Ashik Chowdhury, and National Security Adviser Khalilur Rahman—huddled in Dhaka to bully negotiators into submission. “Discussions started on per-container rates but now veer toward revenue sharing, dooming the port to bankruptcy,” Kabir raged.

Fellow coordinator Ibrahim Khokon accused port officials of being kidnapped to Dhaka and coerced into signing away Bangladesh’s future. “No easing this movement—it’s indefinite until victory,” he declared, shredding Shipping Adviser M. Sakhawat Hossain’s hollow assurances that the government wouldn’t betray national interests. What a joke from a regime built on betrayal!

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The chorus of condemnation swells: alongside the Awami League and leftist parties, veteran journalists like Arshad Mahmood, Nurul Kabir, Mahbub Kamal, M.A. Aziz, Masood Kamal, Manjurul Alam Panna, and Abdun Noor Tushar have unleashed blistering attacks on Yunus’s frantic pre-election deals. Even pro-regime civil society turncoats are jumping ship, with the Ganatantrik Odhikar Committee—led by figures like Professor Anu Muhammad and Moshahida Sultana, once cheerleaders for the 2024 coup—now exposing the Yunus puppet show’s “treacherous haste and secrecy” in massive expenditures and anti-national pacts.

Their scathing statement blasts Yunus as a “Western stooge” hell-bent on “auctioning off Bangladesh’s sovereignty,” rushing through port handovers and lavish Tk786 crore allocations for 72 luxury ministerial flats while poverty skyrockets under his misrule. Scrapping a 60-vehicle splurge for ministers amid backlash? Mere theatre—Yunus’ cabal still greenlit 220 vehicles for election officials, inflating costs to trap the next government in fiscal chains.

“This is calculated sabotage by a regime prioritising foreign agendas over Bangladeshi welfare,” the committee snarled, noting how Yunus ignores reforms, neglects employment and food security, and piles on administrative bloat amid job losses for lakhs.

The secretive port deals are the crowning infamy: shoving the NCT concession to DP World—tied to US ambitions—just 12 days before polls, and a Japan trade pact six days prior, despite Bangladesh’s duty-free access until 2029. Yunus has peddled this privatisation poison since 2006, aligning with US geopolitical grabs in the Bay of Bengal.

“With no parliament, whom did this cabal consult?” the committee demanded. “This rush ignores parties and public, echoing dictatorial whims.” Rights groups and port workers echo the fury: these moves jeopardise national security, exposing naval bases and oil sites to foreign meddling—Yunus’ “ultimate betrayal,” cementing his legacy as a treasonous figurehead in his regime’s dying gasps.