Zia offered me to be minister after Bangabandhu killing: President Hamid

President M Abdul Hamid said after the brutal assassination of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, military ruler Ziaur Rahman had offered him to become a minister.

“Zia offered me to be a minister through colonel Mahfuzur Rahman… At the same time, he also threatened to throw me in jail for 25 years if I did not comply with the proposal,” the president reminisced about Bangabandhu and the aftermath of his killing in a recorded interview given to the state-run Bangladesh Television (BTV) on National Mourning Day.

Referring to Ziaur Rahman's offer, the head of the state said he officially protested the barbaric assassination of Bangabandhu by attending a discussion in Kishoreganj on 21 February 1976.

“In my speech, I said no dictatorship from Hitler-Mussolini to others could have survived and none (autocracy) will survive in our country also,” the president added.

“A few days after the remarks, I was arrested,” the head of the state, who was a student leader-cum-young parliamentarian that time, recounted, hinting at miserable sufferings he endured in the name of imprisonment.

Recalling his memories with the Father of the Nation in an emotion chocked voice, Abdul Hamid said, “I was in the MP hostel on that fateful night of August, and I heard multiple noises before going to my bed at about 3:00-4:00am on the night. I thought that the Dhaka University was rejoicing and firecrackers were exploding.”

The president went on saying: “It was about 7:00am… Khandaker Nurul Islam, an MP of Rajbari who was staying beside my room, knocked at my door and subsequently conveyed the bad news. After a while he came to me with a radio which was telecasting killer major Dalim’s announcement of assassinating Bangabandhu.”

Abdul Hamid was elected as the youngest member of the Pakistan National Assembly from Mymensingh-17 constituency in the 1970 election.

He was elected from Kishoreganj-5 constituency in the first general election of the country on 7 March 1973. He was also elected MP in third parliament election in 1986, fifth parliament in 1991, seventh parliament in 1996, eighth parliament in 2001 and the national polls in 2008.

The president, who was involved in politics since his student life, also mentioned many memories with the greatest Bangalee, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

He said being a new Member of Parliament, he got Bangabandhu’s cooperation to get his first car.

Referring to pre-15 August overall situation, the veteran politician and close associate of the greatest Bangalee of thousand years, said, “It seemed that something bad would happen. And I met Bangabandhu at the Ganabhaban in the afternoon of 11 August 1975.

“Bangabandhu asked me to wait... Later in the evening he went for walking in the Ganabhaban garden. I was with him. I talked to him privately and informed him what I came to know from an intelligence agency. But Bangabandhu replied with a smiling face -- ‘There was a little trouble… Everything is now fine. Don’t worry’.”

Being reassured, Abdul Hamid said, he came back and it was his last meeting with Bangabandhu. “Now I understand that nothing was right then. The assailants were ready to dye their hands with the red blood of our Father of the Nation.”