FROM KUALA LUMPUR: Seven years after a political tornado departed them, family members of late President Ziaur Rahman will be together in Singapore Saturday night.
While Begum Khaleda Zia will fly from Dhaka, some 1,789 miles from Singapore, her elder son Tarique Rahman 6,750 miles from London.
Khaleda’s younger son Arafat Rahman Koko however is only 200 miles away from the port city, the meeting place of the one of the two most influential families of Bangladesh.
BNP’s Senior Vice Chairman Tarique Rahman has arrived Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur en route to Singapore from London. Koko has been staying here for long.
Both of them are wanted in different cases in Bangladesh.
Political analysts termed it an ‘emotional’ but politically significant reunion of the Zia’s predecessors as members of the family are detached from one to another since 2008 when Tarique and Koko had to leave the country for treatment.
Being released from prison, with the country had been heading towards an election to end a military-back two years rule, Tarique and his family went to London while Koko along with his family to Bangkok.
Koko later shifted to Malaysia.
BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia will leave Dhaka to meet her sons in Singapore on Saturday night.
Some top leaders of Malaysia BNP confirmed the matter to banglanews.
Despite a family reunion, party insiders said, Tarique and Khaleda will jointly take some important political decisions to raise effective movement against the Awami League government.
Usually Koko does not have much to say on political affairs and he does not hold any post in BNP, too.
Tarique Rahman, who was arrested on March 7, 2007, two months after Fakhruddin Ahmed’s caretaker government took over, alleges that he was seriously tortured in custody.
He looked pale and seriously ill during his release on bail and departure from the country on September 3, 2008.
He however looked healthy when he joined a number of political programs in London in last few months to make some “controversial” comments.
Arafat Rahman Koko was arrested on April 16 in 2007. On July 17, 2008 he was released on parole to pave the way for his departure for Bangkok.
BDST: 2145 HRS, JUN 07, 2014
