DHAKA: The Liberation War Museum returns a donation made by Islami Bank on Sunday.

“We will return their money on Sunday as the bank was closed for weekly holiday,” Museum’s trustee-board member Mofidul Huq told banglanews24.com.bd.

Another trustee board member of the museum Akku Chowdhury said the Bank handed over a check of Tk 50 lakh to the Prime Minister on August 16 along with 35 other banks. The Museum received the check on Thursday.  

banglanews24.com.bd on August 19 made a report on the matter. The charity raised a controversy as to how far it would be justified to take grants from a bank patronised by Jamaat-e-Islami, the party that opposed the war of independence and whose top leaders are now in the dock on war-crime charges.  

Later, the Board of Trustees of the Museum decided to return the grant assistance. The Islami Bank donated the amount to help the museum’s authorities in preserving the memories of the country’s freedom fight.

“We cannot set up the Liberation War Museum with the money provided by those who opposed the war for our independence,” Museum’s trustee-board member Mofidul Huq said.

On August 16, Islami Bank chairman Prof Abu Naser Muhammad Abduz Zaher formally handed over the for Tk 50 lakh to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the presence of Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman and Liberation War Museum Trustee Mofidul Huq.

Executive vice-chairman of Islami Bank Ashiq Ahmed told banglanews24.com.bd that the Prime Minister, during a meeting with the Bankers Association of Bangladesh (BAB), had requested the banks through the Governor to donate for the building of the Museum.

“We responded to that request,” he said.

On behalf of the BAB, Tk 23.60 crore has been deposited with the PM, Mofidul said.

“Islami Bank, as a member of the association, was also included in the list of donors, but we would not take their support,” Mofidul said.

Members of the Board of Directors of the bank are mostly senior members of Jamaat-e-Islami. Many of them are also accused of war crimes, now that the trial process reopened after nearly four decades of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War against the then Pakistani junta.

BDST 2025 HRS, AUGUST 19, 2010.