Former President Abdul Hamid unassumingly returned to Dhaka last Monday, reportedly after receiving medical treatment in Thailand. He had left the country in a carefully orchestrated discreet manner a month ago on May 8.
However, both his departure and arrival has left this writer in a state of peculiar mix of confusion and mystery. His departure triggered countrywide sensational broadcast back then, and his unexpected arrival has also done the same. What is even more amusing is that our Home Adviser responded to both incidents in his usual dull manner.
As it usually happens, a three member probe committee was formed amid countrywide reactions. We have no clue about what investigation the probe committee had carried out, but disciplinary actions were taken against some three police officers and an immigration official, making them appear in the likes of scapegoats.
Questions here are – why and how was the former AL regime president allowed to leave the country in the first place? And why and how was he allowed to make his return in the second place? And this is the most important one, how to circulate and generate a news based on Mr Hamid’s arrival and departure?
Though generating and circulating news on the topic of his departure and arrival largely falls on the shoulders of the media industry, but the cloudy and smoky responses coming from the home boss and the Interim Government’s press wing has left me baffled for over 4 days till now.
If we carefully reflect back to the both incidents, there are more than enough reasons to believe they had been carefully planned directly linked to banning Awami League, capitalize on the former president’s ailing health while divert public attention to a different course.
It is right on this point where it is essential to hammer in the head by asking the mysterious nature of imposing travel bans and also prevent an individual from leaving the country in today’s Bangladesh. Just recently a noted celebrity was barred from leaving the country, sent to jail and later granted bail in the wake of growing protests from various NGOs and humanitarian organizations. Travel bans had been imposed on a notable AL politician and his family members despite residing in the country for over 10 months after the collapse of Hasina regime. Scores of businessmen are in a state of horror for departing the country for undertaking business trips. And this writer will not be surprised, if he too is barred from travelling abroad on some whimsical or ridiculous ground.
Now is the time to place my list of craving curiosities. Who was the protagonist behind the Former President Hamid’s departure and arrival designed and executed with such meticulous precision?
Assuming the former president to be complicit to Hasina regime crimes, accepting the failures of our police and immigration authorities to prevent his departure, why wasn’t he arrested or sent back to Thailand in the next return flight?
Former President Hamid’s departure for medical treatment to Thailand, and then his unanticipated arrival, both incidents don’t carry much news value. The value lay somewhere deeper inside a growing political crisis, and his departure has at least unquestionably manufactured a valuable political by-product.Cashing in into Mr Hamid’s departure, Awami League’s party activities were banned on 10 May under the questionably amended Anti-Terrorism Act.
It will only be foolish to say that the Chief Adviser’s Office and our immigration authorities concern were not given the green signal to clear him on both instances, when he departed and also landed in the country. Mr Hamid’s departure and arrival was also bargained at a cost.
However, reading between the lines of Mr Hamid’s much hyped departure and arrival incidents, I found there are some important hidden messages we could mull over.
First, the country’s immigration mechanisms, irrespective of air or land ports, no longer function according to established rules of business.
Second, the Interim Government is continuously being manipulated by ‘several political stakeholders’ of the government. Even an undergrad and well-informed university student is well aware of the rifts and divisions within our power centre.
Third, imagine this situation where Ms Hasina or Tarique Zia has landed at any of our international airports in Dhaka, Chittagong or Sylhet. How will the Interim Government respond or react to such an extraordinary situation, when it cannot even handle with departure and arrival issues of a former Bangladesh President?
Four, not an imminent civil war, rather we are fast getting entangled in a complex web of political trade-offs. Another eye-opener is in the offing to take place in London next Friday as the Chief Adviser is all set to meet BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman.
Whatever the outcome of that meeting may be, establishing a political consensus leading to a free and fair general election will only get more problematic due to far too many petty and divisive political agendas brewing within our political spectrum. Moreover, international power players are visibly distancing and getting sceptic about our political future.
Quoting Benjamin Button once more - Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.
The Interim Government top-brass by now has chalked out a long list of missed opportunities on all fronts. What’s next?
I am not too curious, since too much of it once killed a cat. But I am curious to know what the former president is doing right now.
The writer is Editorial Chief, Daily Observer
