Ousted Bangladeshi MP and cricketer Shakib Al Hasan His permission to remain with the national team in Pakistan on Wednesday was granted by the de facto leaders who ousted his old boss. Shakib, a former Bangladesh captain, took over as an MP for ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party in January after elections without any real opposition. He lost the post when parliament was dissolved last week after Hasina abruptly resigned and fled to India by helicopter following the dramatic end to a student-led national uprising. One of those student leaders, Asif Mahmud, 26, is now the de facto sports minister in the interim government and allowed Shakib to remain with the team despite his ties to Hasina and the Awami League.
“We presented the team to the sports advisor,” Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) director Iftekhar Ahmed told AFP.
He said, “He did not oppose the inclusion of Shakib. He said that the team should be formed on the basis of merit.”
Mahmud was one of the key members of the protest group Students Against Discrimination, which organised rallies to oust Hasina from power.
He and fellow student leader Nahid Islam are members of the advisory cabinet led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, which took office after Hasina fled.
Shakib, 37, was spotted by AFP training at the Gaddafi Cricket Stadium in Lahore on Wednesday.
Hasina had not been seen since her resignation and had joined the Bangladesh team in Pakistan directly from Canada, where they were playing in a Twenty20 competition.
‘Should have come home’
Shakib normally uses Facebook a lot, but he hasn’t made a public post since July 14 — two days before the deadly police crackdown on protests began.
“As an MP, Shakib cannot escape responsibility for the mass killings,” Rafiqul Islam, a former BCB board member who served on the board before Hasina took office, told AFP.
“When students were being killed, he never protested. Many of these students considered him an idol. He should have come home earlier and given an explanation as to why he was silent.”
Rafiqul on Tuesday joined the protest outside the BCB headquarters at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium, Bangladesh’s main cricket venue.
He and other sports administrators demanded the removal of cricket board members whom they accused of being Hasina loyalists.
“Mismanagement, authoritarian behaviour and rampant corruption have held Bangladesh back in world cricket,” the group said in a statement on Monday.
Since Hasina fled on August 5, her party offices have been looted and torched and many members of her Awami League party have gone into hiding for fear of violence.
Since Yunus’ interim government came to power, Hasina loyalists have been removed from Bangladesh’s courts, the central bank and other government institutions.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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