Maj (retd) Hafizuddin Ahmed, who took part in the Liberation War as a Z Force member under Lt Gen (retd) Ziaur Rahman, has expressed frustration over his current position in the BNP.
"Among the army officer in the Z Force, four were in the BNP. Of them, Col Akbar Hossain passed away. The two others – Col Oli Ahmed and Maj Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury – left the party. I am the only one still surviving with a lot of discomforts," he said on Wednesday.
Hafiz, a BNP vice-chairman, came up with the remarks while speaking at a virtual discussion, marking the formation of Z Force in 1971.
BNP national committee on the celebration of the golden jubilee of the country's independence arranged the program. The Z Force was the first military brigade of Bangladesh Forces formed on July 7 during the Liberation War under then major Ziaur Rahman.
Hafiz said the Z Force was the first and full brigade of the Liberation War with three infantry battalions. "The Z Force was a strong brigade of the Bangladesh Army who played a very glorious role in the battlefield. The Z Force had won the most gallantry awards in the War of Independence. The number of martyrs was the highest from the Z Force."
Hafiz bemoaned that though BNP had been in power for different terms, it did not duly recall the role of the Z Force. "When we stay in power, we remain busy flattering the living leaders. When we were in power, the name of Z Force was not recalled."
He thanked BNP's committee on the golden jubilee celebration for arranging the program, commemorating the formation of the Z force.
BNP standing committee members Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Mirza Abbas, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, Nazrul Islam Khan and Selima Rahman, among others, spoke at the program.
Hafiz has some sort of distance with BNP top leaders as he worked as the secretary general of a faction of BNP-led by Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan and other reformist leaders during military-backed caretaker government in 2007.
He, however, returned to the mainstream BNP later and was again made a party vice-chairman.
Hafiz has been holding the post of the party vice-chairman for 22 years, though many of his junior leaders became the party standing committee members. Though there were speculations at different times about inducting him into the party policy-making body, it still did not happen.
On December 14 last year, BNP sent a show-cause notice, signed by Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, to Hafiz for his remarks on party senior leaders.
Hafiz had an initial plan to quit the party, but he changed the decision following an understating with the party high-ups.
At a press confrere on December 19, he termed untrue the allegations that mentioned in the show-cause notice served on him and said he felt insulted as the party senior joint secretary general issued it in an "attacking language that goes against courtesy and protocol".
"As a war-wounded and gallantry-award-recipient freedom fighter, I'm shocked to receive a show-cause notice with untrue allegations in a disrespectful language on the Martyred Intellectuals Day in the month of victory," he told the press conference.
