Issuing a strong warning to Tarique Rahman for his disparaging remarks about Bangabandhu, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday advised opposition BNP chief Khaleda Zia to restrain her son now living in London.

“He behaves and talks like an animal. Unless he is controlled, people will teach him a lesson,” Hasina said while addressing at a ruling Awami League event in Dhaka
yesterday.

“Better control your disgraceful son. Or else the people of Bangladesh will not
tolerate what he is doing.”

Hasina said justice will be meted out to those involved with the August 21 grenade attack. Tarique is a prime
accused in that case.

Hasina’s angry reaction follows Tarique describing her father and nation’s founder Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as a ‘Razakar’ (a collaborator of Pakistani army).

Rajakar connotes those who supported the Pakistani military effort in 1971 and perpetrated horrible atrocities against Bengali civilians and freedom fighters.

Tarique said Sheikh Mujib had accepted Yahya Khan as Pakistan’s president and went for the national and provincial elections accepting his
conditions.

He claimed that Sheikh Mujib never wanted an independent Bangladesh but a
combined Pakistan.

Meanwhile, a Supreme Court lawyer has served a legal notice on Tarique, who is a BNP senior vice-chairman, for calling Bangabandhu a ‘Razakar.’

Mamtaj Uddin Ahmad, former secretary of the Supreme Court Lawyers Association, sent the legal notice to BNP’s Nayapaltan office in the capital yesterday.

In the legal notice, Mamtaj asked Tarique to apologise for this ‘derogatory’ statement within seven days.

Earlier on December 10, a Dhaka court issued an arrest warrant against Tarique in a defamation case for calling Bangabandhu “Pakbandhu’ (Friend of Pakistan).

Tarique has been living in London since September 11, 2008 on medical grounds after securing parole in various cases.

He faces 14 charges, of which four, including the August 21 grenade attack case, are on trial and the rest are stayed by courts.