Staff Reporter:
Asif Nazrul, adviser to the Ministries of Law, Youth and Sports, and Expatriates’ Welfare, has shared an emotional reminiscence about former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia. He posted the reflection on Facebook on Friday (9 January).
Asif Nazrul wrote that he had been an admirer of Khaleda Zia from a very early stage. He noted that she perhaps liked him as a journalist. Recalling events from 1988–89, he said that at the time the BNP office was located in Dhanmondi, where he conducted an interview with her in her office. After responding to written questions, she also allowed him to ask questions face to face that day.
He wrote that BNP affairs were then overseen by Fazlur Rahman Potol, while the party’s Secretary General was Barrister Abdus Salam Talukder. He entered Khaleda Zia’s room accompanied by then Chhatra Dal President Asaduzzaman Ripon. Khaleda Zia was seated behind a large table on a big chair, while he sat on one of the chairs in front of the table and Ripon sat farther away. Senior BNP leaders were seated on a cane sofa set at the other end of the long room.
Asif Nazrul said that he did not find her written answers very engaging, so in an effort to make the interview livelier, he asked her a sharp question. She paused briefly. From behind, Saifur Rahman remarked, “What kind of question is this?” Asif Nazrul recalled that he was a hot-headed young man at the time and replied angrily, saying, “Why are you speaking? I’m not interviewing you!”
He said Saifur Rahman was about to respond angrily, but Khaleda Zia stopped him. She then answered his question with a smile. After that, he conducted four or five more exclusive interviews with her for the weekly magazine Bichitra.
Asif Nazrul further wrote that after completing his PhD and returning to the country, he became a columnist and began speaking on talk shows. After the Awami League came to power in 2009, he said, false cases, allegations, harassment, and repression were unleashed against Khaleda Zia. Despite this, she remained steadfast with immense sacrifice, courage, and patriotism. He said his respect for her deepened greatly and that during what he described as Sheikh Hasina’s fascist rule, he never refrained from expressing this respect and support. Apart from Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, he said he had not heard anyone else within the BNP speak so strongly in her favor during those fifteen years.
He concluded by writing that Allah rewarded him for this. On the day of Khaleda Zia’s final farewell, he was present near her and her family for most of the time and joined in the first prayers for her. He noted that she was wrapped in the national flag of Bangladesh—a flag for whose honor she endured lifelong deprivation and suffering. He said he also had the honor of handing over that flag to her children, for which he expressed profound gratitude to Allah.
