Bangabandhu’s grandson and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, has lambasted the “politically compromised” Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) for filing false cases against his family members.
He also termed the so-called “corruption cases” against him and his family members regarding the allotment of plots in the Purbachal New Town Project “completely false, baseless, fabricated and motivated by ulterior political agendas” of the Yunus-led interim government.
He stated on Tuesday that no illegality was involved in the entire process of acquiring the Purbachal plots. “Every step of the process, from the application to allotment to payment, followed the letter of the law.”
He alleged that this is simply a futile attempt by the Yunus regime to “sully the name of my family.”
Sajeeb Wazed added that the judiciary is compliant and too intimidated to pursue the truth.
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The ACC launched the investigation on December 26 last year and filed six cases against Sheikh Hasina, her son Sajeeb Wazed and daughter Saima Wazed, Sheikh Rehana, Rehana’s son Radwan Mujib Siddiq, and daughters Tulip Siddiq and Azmina Siddiq on allegations of irregularities in allocating 60 katha of plots under the Purbachal New Town Project.
On the other hand, the ACC has been sluggish in probing the allegations of corruption against the private secretaries of several advisers and has withdrawn or quashed cases against Yunus, BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman, and other key allies of the interim government.
Moreover, Yunus has 4,800 kathas of land in Purbachal, where he has built a resort named Nishorgo. It has a branch in Cox’s Bazar. He also bought 5 acres of land in Uttara and 80 kathas of land in Chittagong.
In total, Yunus’ land is worth Tk6,000 crore all over Bangladesh.
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Sajeeb Wazed said that the plots were not given free of charge but had to be purchased from the government at the official rates.
He said that under the Yunus dictatorship, the ACC has been turned into a full-time tool for harassing and defaming his family members with baseless allegations.
ACC Chairman Abdul Momen was fired by the Awami League government for corruption allegations. His only qualification for the job seems to be his background as a pro-BNP bureaucrat who had served as the private secretary of Khaleda Zia. “Thus, we had little expectations of fairness and justice from the ACC.”
He insisted that these so-called “cases” should have been thrown out by the courts at first instance. However, given the Yunus regime’s strict control over the judiciary, naked political interference of BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami lawyers over judicial matters, partisan public prosecutors, and the constant fear of mob violence, “the courts are now not only entertaining such baseless allegations but also issuing arrest warrants at whims, arbitrarily ordering freezing of our properties, and taking these baseless and unmeritorious cases to the trial stage.”
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They have afforded no legal protection for the defendants, including state-appointed defense counsel.
Sajeeb Wazed added that they are not defending these allegations in court “because under the Yunus regime, there simply cannot be any trust in the judiciary’s ability to discharge justice neutrally.”
He said that hundreds of thousands of Awami League-associated people, including those who are mere supporters, have been arrested in hundreds of wholesale false criminal cases and are languishing in jail for months without bail.
If someone indeed manages bail, they are then “shown arrested” in more cases to further prolong the pre-trial detention. “There is not even the semblance of due process, with lawyers and defendants getting assaulted in courts without any repercussions.”
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