Don�t cut cake on mourning day
Hasan Mahmud warns Khaleda; No BNP?celebration plan for �early today�
A senior Awami League leader has warned BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia against cutting her birthday cake on the day of the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman today. Were still waiting for Khaleda to apologise for the unpardonable mistake of celebrating her birthday on the anniversary of Bangabandhus assassination. But if she cuts her birthday cake on this day again, people will teach her a good lesson this time, AL publications and publicity affairs secretary Dr Hasan Mahmud said yesterday. Khaleda, who became prime minister twice, has four to five birth certificates. How is this possible? She could not do politics if it would not have been Bangladesh, he added.
Mahmud was addressing a discussion organised by Bangabandhu Sangskritic Jote to mark the 40th death anniversary of Bangabandhu at Shilpakala Academy in Dhaka. Meanwhile, some pro-AL organisations such as Sohojoddha Muktijoddha Command, Bangladesh Awami Prochar o Prokashina League, Amra Muktijodhar Shontan and National Coordination Committee for Freedom Fighters said they would resist Khaleda Zia from cutting a cake to celebrate her fake birthday on a day of national mourning.
Leaders of these organisations said this yesterday during a human-chain demonstration in front of the National Press Club to commemorate Bangabandhus death anniversary.
UNB adds: Unlike previous years, BNP sources hinted that BNP chairperson and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia may not cut cake in the early hours today, to celebrate her birthday at her Gulshan office.
The BNP chief turns 70 today although there are a lot of debates over her actual date of birth.
A BNP leader close to Khaleda said the BNP chief usually neither goes to her political office nor allows her party men in her residence on Friday as she passes the weekend on her own at home.
BNP central office sources said there is no scheduled programme there at night to celebrate the birthday.
However, a party leader, wishing anonymity, said the associate bodies of BNP, including Mohila Dal, Chhatra Dal and Juba Dal, are likely to cut cakes and hold doa mahfil today, marking Khaledas birthday.
There is controversy over her birth year as well. Various records suggest Khaleda Zia was born in 1945. But last year her party claimed her actual birth year is 1946. She also registered her birth year 1946 in her new passport.
According to Banglapedia and well-known encyclopedias wikipedia and Britannica Khaleda Zia was born to Iskandar Majumder, a businessman, and Taiyaba Majumder in Dinajpur district in 1945. The bio-data Khaleda Zia submitted to the Parliament Secretariat when she was made the opposition leader last suggests that the BNP chief was born on August 15, 1945.
The controversy over the birthday began in 1991 when Khaleda first celebrated it on August 15 after assuming office as prime minister and declared it as her official birthday.
Despite criticisms by Awami League, BNP and its associate bodies have been celebrating her birthday on August 15 since then. Awami League leaders have long been claiming that her birthday is Sept 5, 1945 according to her marriage certificate while Aug 19, 1946 as per her first passport. Khaleda herself put the date as Aug 9, 1944 while registering her name for the matriculation exams, they said.
