Delhi welcomes Tarique arrest

JYOTI MALHOTRA

New Delhi, March 9, 2007 : The arrest of Tarique Rahman in Dhaka, son of ex-Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia and widely considered to be the most powerful man in that country has transfixed Bangladesh – and evoked a sense of both satisfaction and relief in New Delhi.

The government is unwilling to say anything at all on the record, but clearly, the signs that a pragmatic Indian establishment is willing to deal with the Army-backed caretaker government of Fakhruddin Ahmed in Dhaka, are large and clear.

For a start, New Delhi is in regular touch with both Ahmed’s government as well as with the Bangladesh army establishment, which has sent a number of signals that they are willing to do business with India.

India’s high commissioner to Bangladesh Pinak Chakraborty had met the Army chief, Lt. Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed one day before the visit of External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee to Dhaka on February 19.

The Bangladesh army chief has also been invited to India and New Delhi hopes he will accept the invitation soon.

``There was a lot of criminality and even links between extremists and a number of people in the former government,’’ establishment sources said here.

The sources pointed out that some of these people had been actively working against India, and to that extent, if the Army was seen to be cleansing public life in Bangladesh, the Indian establishment could only welcome it.

During Mukherjee’s visit, for example, India and Bangladesh agreed to simple things that neither Khaleda nor Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League had been able to pull off. Such as the train from Sealdah in Kolkata to Joydebpur outside Dhaka.

The train will flag off its inaugural journey on April 14.

Political observers agree that New Delhi’s barely-concealed welcome of Fakhruddin Ahmed’s Army-backed government is a major shift from its traditional distaste for military rule, especially in the sub-continent.

The first sign of this pragmatism is the fact that New Delhi will welcome Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, whose government is backed by the Army, to the SAARC summit in early April, even though he is not an elected leader of his country.

While Tarique Rahman did not have an official post in Khaleda Zia’s regime, he is commonly believed to have run a parallel administration from Hawa Bhaban, the BNP party headquarters in the city.

Tarique’s arrest and consequent refusal of bail by a Dhaka court on charges of extorting nearly Rs 70 lakh (one crore taka), observers here said, only meant that the Army was asserting its authority.

Over the last month, to large public applause, soldiers have fanned out across the country arresting people and seizing relief material meant for the poor from leaders across the political spectrum, while the Anti-Corruption Commission has been publishing lists of Bangladesh’s most corrupt.

ENDS