Bangladesh President Muhammad Shahabuddin has signed an order releasing former prime minister and opposition leader Khaleda Zia from house arrest, hours after her rival Sheikh Hasina was ousted from power and the military took over.
The president’s press team said in a statement that a meeting led by Shahabuddin took a “unanimous decision to immediately release Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia.”
Khaleda Zia is the leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, a post she held as prime minister from 1991 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2006. In 2007, Mrs. Zia was arrested on corruption charges and sentenced to prison. She was released on bail a year later. Dozens more cases were subsequently brought against the former prime minister. In 2018, she was sentenced to prison again, then the preventive measure was changed several times to house arrest due to Khaleda Zia’s health problems.
The meeting was attended by army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman, heads of the navy and air force, and top leaders of several opposition parties, including BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami. The statement said:
“The meeting also decided to release all the people who were arrested during the student protests.”
Earlier on Monday, Waker said on state television that Hasina had resigned and the military would form an interim government. The statement added:
“The meeting decided to form an interim government immediately.”
Hasina had been trying to quell nationwide protests against her government since early July, but she left the country after violent riots on Sunday that left about 100 people dead.
Protesters are destroying temples
The attack on the ISKCON temple is part of a wider wave of violence that has targeted numerous Hindu temples across Bangladesh in the past 24 hours.
The ISKCON temple in Meherpur, located in Bangladesh’s Khulna state, was vandalised and set on fire as unrest continues in the country over the resignation and departure of former PM Sheikh Hasina.
ISKCON spokesperson Yudhistir Govinda Das confirmed the incident, saying:
“According to information I received, one of our ISKCON centres (rented) in Meherpur was burnt along with the deities of Lord Jagannatha, Baladeva and Subhadra Devi. Three devotees living in this centre somehow managed to escape and survived (sic).”
The situation of religious minorities in Bangladesh has become increasingly precarious since Hasina was ousted from power and Hindu temples have been attacked amid ongoing unrest.
Kajol Debnath, leader of the Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Council, told news agency PTI that at least four Hindu temples were attacked on Monday with minor damage.
Besides the attacks on temples, the Indian Cultural Centre in Dhaka was also vandalised by an unruly mob. The Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre, which promotes cultural exchange between India and Bangladesh, was damaged in the violence.
Protesters in the capital also set fire to several key sites, including Bangabandhu Bhaban, the personal residence of founding father and former Bangladesh president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who is also Sheikh Hasina’s father.
