No correlation between surrendering passport, citizenship: DG
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) acting chairman Tarique Rahman will have to return home if he wants to get back his passport, a top official concerned said on Thursday.
Major general Masud Rezwan, director general of Department of Immigration and Passports, came up with the observation following controversies surrounding Tarique’s passport and state minister for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam’s claim that the BNP leader forfeited his nationality.
The official, as UNB reported, explained that there is no correlation between 'citizenship and surrendering a passport'.
"One's citizenship is not cancelled if s/he has no passport. If BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman has filed an appeal seeking cancellation of his citizenship, that's a different thing, but we've no idea whether Tarique filed any application in this regard," Masud Rezwan was quoted to have said.
The DG told Prothom Alo on Thursday morning that two types of citizens are not entitled to securing passport - a fugitive person or the one sentenced to a minimum of two years of imprisonment. Any of this categories of persons cannot get back passport before completion of five years of his/her jail term or freeing of charges, according to the official.
He added that Tarique Rahman would not be able to get a passport even if he files any application at the moment.
The DG referred to the Bangladesh Passport Order 1973, which says, a person convicted for minimum of two years would not be issued a passport if he applies within five years of conviction.
Tarique Rahman has been sentenced to suffer 10 years of imprisonment in Zia Orphanage Trust case by a Dhaka court which also awarded his mother, BNP chairperson and former prime minister Khaleda Zia with five years in jail.
However, the official pointed out, Tarique Rahma, who has been staying in London since 2008, would have to return home to get back his passport after getting the national identification (NID) card.
"It's known to all that Tarique has no NID and he has to return home for taking both NID and passport," UNB quoted him as saying.
The DG said to a questioner, "There'll be no problem in his return to home. He can return home after taking travel pass from Bangladesh Embassy (high commission in London) and anyone can do it."
"Tarique surrendered his passport at London High Commission in 2014 and he hasn't filed any application for his passport since then," Masud Rezwan was quoted to have said.
Tarique renewed his passport from Bangladesh high vommission in London in 2010 after he left Bangladesh in 2008, he said.
When Tarique left the country, he was not a convicted accused, the official recalled.
Addressing a reception hosted by the UK Awami League in honour of prime minister Sheikh Hasina in London last week, Shahriar Alam had said Tarique, gave up his nationality by handing over his Bangladesh passport to the UK Home Office almost four years ago.
Afterwards, Tarique served a legal notice upon Shahriar asking him to prove by 10 days his remark that he has relinquished his nationality by submitting his Bangladeshi passport.
On behalf of Tarique, BNP law affairs secretary Kaiser Kamal sent the notice by post to the foreign ministry's address.
BNP also protested at the state minister's comment and challenged the Bangladesh high commission to show Tarique Rahman's Bangladeshi passport, had he submitted it.