The ISPR rather alleged that the opposition leader had threatened and rebuked the members of the armed forces in ‘filthy language’ and ‘did not hesitate to call them ungrateful dogs and national enemy’.
It said Khaleda’s misbehaviour with officials and employees of cantonment board, military land administration directorate and police and RAB men and attempts to obstruct them in discharging their official duties surprised all who were present at the scene.
The ISPR release reiterated its earlier statement saying the ex-prime minister was fully prepared to vacate the house packing up her belongings in several bags and big cartons while she transferred many of the household articles beforehand to her younger brother Shamim Iskandar’s Gulshan residence.
It said the cantonment board officials went to the house Saturday morning to request her to vacate the house and to take its possession in legal manner as the High Court deadline asking her to vacate it expired a day ahead.
They conveyed the request to her and by 9:30am 61 out of 67 domestic aides who were staying there left the house but the officials were told that Khaleda was was asleep.
At around 11:00am, the statement said, she came to know that the officials concerned were waiting outside to request her to vacate the house.
‘Then she started preparations in an ‘easy going’ manner and spent nearly two hours for make-ups and other related activities and seeing her unnecessary delay, two policewomen knocked at her windows but she became furious and rebuked the army hurling abuses,’ the statement said.
‘She shouted “I am keeping in mind everybody’s face, I will kick them out of the service after going to power” and started talking to leaders and activists of her party, prompting them to gather around the cantonment,’ the ISPR said.
But, it said, the opposition leader then started inspecting her packed belongings and articles of the house and gave her decision to take 10 bags and four huge size cartons out of the house to be brought along with her immediately and according those were loaded to three vehicles outside by her personal aides.
Then she went round every room of the house to see if the belongings and household articles were alright and demanded written assurances from the officials for their safety and security.
‘She finally gave her decision to leave the house after the Cantonment Board officials gave her a written assurance of protecting the materials,’ the ISPR said.
The statement recalled that in the previous several days Khaleda had transferred nearly 100 cartons and bags to the residence of her brother Sayeed Iskandar and the mother-in-law of her younger son Arafat Rahman while kept ready the rest of the articles or materials packed to be transferred.
‘This carries the clear sign of her plan to vacate the house… She quit the house voluntarily accepting the court verdict and no force was used,’ the statement said adding that if force had been applied, Khaleda would have to leave it in the morning instead of 3:15 in the afternoon.
The ISPR said her personal driver drove the car as she left the house.
The statement noted that the chandeliers and even the tube lights which were provided by the army MES too were un-plugged to be taken away while most articles and materials of the palatial house was very costly and splendid looking but ‘surprisingly some very insignificant materials too were kept to be transferred’.
‘Begum Khaleda Zia left the house with due honour and respect. Despite her misbehaviour with the people present, everybody discharged their respective duties showing due restraints,’ it said.
The ISPR said the house was currently under the disposal of the police, not the army.
New Age staff correspondent reports: Khaleda described as ‘downright falsehood’
ISPR’s claims that she had voluntarily left the house
The ISPR arranged a tour of Khaleda’s house by newsmen Sunday afternoon, a day after she ‘left willingly’.
During the guided tour, Khaleda’s bedroom door was found newly repaired and the paint on the bolt of the gate in the porch was fresh.
Khaleda on Saturday told reporters that the law enforcers had broken open the door of her bedroom.
There was a small drawing room beside the reading room the door-latch of which was found broken.
On Sunday, at about 3:30pm, the journalists were allowed to enter the house, and military officials asked them not to touch anything as they were responsible for looking after Khaleda’s belongings.
A lady officer requested the journalists to enter the posh bathroom and asked them to see all the things left there by Khaleda Zia.
At 4:20pm Lieutenant Colonel (Retd) Wali Ullah, public relations officer of the Army Station Headquarters who was present during the tour, requested journalists to leave Khaleda’s former bedroom.
As the journalists hastened to leave the house through the nearby lobby, an army officer requested them to enter the room again and asked them to open a drawer of the bedside table.
A journalist opened the drawer and found some porno magazines there, but all the other 15 drawers of a dressing table, another bed-side table and a curio table were empty, as far this correspondent could ascertain.
But when another journalist tried to see the contents of those drawers, the same officer asked him not to do so.
-New Age
No comments:
Post a Comment