Et tu, Hasina!

When the news of filing a writ petition with the High Court seeking cancellation of 60 kathas of land in Rajuk's Purbachal New City project allocated to ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her family members was breaking on television scroll on Tuesday many people were horrified at the exposure of her insatiable appetite for property.

Who are these lucky six? Hasina herself, her son Sajeeb Wajed Joy and daughter Saima Wazed Putul, sister Sheikh Rehana and her son Radwan Mujib Siddiq Bobby and daughter Azmina Siddique Ruponti each were given 10-katha plots in the government developed housing estate in 2022.

Of them, Rehana, younger daughter of Bangabandhu, is the luckiest as she was also allocated a house on one and a half bighas of land in Dhaka's upscale Gulshan in May 2014 by the government led by her elder sister--four months after the one-sided election in which Hasina cozied herself to power.

This is not the first instance of allocation of public properties to herself and her family members abusing her limitless power.

At the far end of her first term as prime minister, Hasina, in 2001, blatantly abused the parliament to make a law with the provision for providing all family members of "the father of the nation" with state security and houses to live in.

The then-cabinet led by Hasina allocated herself the Ganabhaban, the office cum residence of the prime minister, for a token price. Her sister Sheikh Rehana was also allocated a house in the Dhanmondi area. The Hasina government also allocated grants of Tk 10 lakh for Rehana and her offspring, all educational expenses of her offspring at home or abroad and an allowance in Taka for each child per month until the age of 25. Rehana used the house to accommodate her personal staff.

"The matter was marked as a state top secret. As a result, only a few officials are aware of it with many in Rajuk being kept in the dark."

At the end of her tenure in the middle of July 2001, an election-time non-partisan caretaker government was formed; her luck saw a reversal of the self-serving grabbing of state, in other words, the people's properties.

The then-BNP led by Khaleda Zia enforced hartal protesting passage of the bill by the parliament for making provision for preserving and displaying the portrait of Bangabandhu at government offices and allocation of houses, giving security to Bangabandhu's family members.

After the caretaker government was formed in the middle of July, the BNP demanded that the interim government cancel the allocation of Ganabhaban to Hasina which, they said, destroyed the level playing field in the election.

Sensing that the caretaker government would move to cancel the allocation of Ganabhaban, an angry Hasina vacated the residence in a huff.

Returning to power in 2001, the then BNP government scrapped the special law and occupied Rehana's "house" in January 2002 and arrested nine personal staff of Rehana on charge of occupying government land illegally.

The Directorate of Housing in 2003 rented out the house to Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) following an appeal from the Home Ministry. It was reassigned as the Dhanmondi police station.

Rehana moved to the High Court filing a writ challenging the takeover of her Dhanmondi house. The case remained pending for years and she finally withdrew the writ in 2011.

But Hasina did not forget the humiliation she and her sister faced as the two sisters lost their "ownership" of Gonobhaban and another house in Dhanmondi.  

Within three months of returning to power in 2009, Hasina cancelled the allotment of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's house on Shaheed Mainul Road inside the Dhaka Cantonment, 'due to a number of anomalies regarding the allotment within the military zone'. The house was allocated to her by the then government after the assassination of president Ziaur Rahman in May 1981.

A week before her cabinet scrapped the allotment, Hasina told parliament that the house was allocated to Khaleda Zia violating the Cantonment Board's rules and her cabinet would decide about cancellation of the allocation.

"She [Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia] should not keep the house ignoring the law. She should leave the house willingly," said Hasina.

Khaleda Zia launched a legal battle by filing a writ petition with the Supreme Court, but finally lost the battle. And in 2010, she was evicted from her cantonment home where she had been living for 38 years since the days when her husband Ziaur Rahman was deputy chief of the army. After the assassination of president Zia, the then army chief HM Ershad had allotted her the 2.72-acre house at a token price.

In June, 2017, senior BNP leader Moudud Ahmed was evicted from his three-decade-long residence by Rajuk as it claimed the BNP leader illegally kept the house under his possession.

But Hasina and her family members continued to enjoy privileges being members of the Bangabandhu family.

Returning to power in January 2009, her government abused legislative power to make the controversial law--"Father of the Nation's Family Members Security Act, 2009."

In the 2001 law, the family members were Hasina and Rehana—two daughters of Bangabandhu who survived the 1975 assassination as they were abroad at that time.

But the 2009 law widened the definition of Bangabandhu's family members which include his two daughters, grandchildren, and in some cases, spouses or children of the grandchildren.

In May 2015, in line with the new law, her government issued a gazette ensuring lifelong foolproof state security everywhere in the country to the family members of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

In a further move, her government moved to provide Bangabandhu family members with maximum security by the Special Security Force (SSF). The parliament in November 2021 passed a bill incorporating the provision in the SSF law of providing security to family members of Bangabandhu.

Under the 2009 controversial law--"Father of the Nation's Family Members Security Act" her government allocated Rehana a house in Gulshan.

This time around Hasina did not need to allocate any house to herself as she entered Ganabhaban after being sworn in as the prime minister in January 2009 where she continued to live until the moment she humiliatingly fled the country on 5 August.

The latest news of the allotment of the 60 kathas of plots to Hasina and her family members exposed her insatiable desire for properties too.

Allocation of such a huge chunk of land in the Rajuk Purbachal project was kept out of public domain so far as the petitioner of the case seeking scrapping the allotment, Mohammad Misbah Uddin alleged: "The matter was marked as a state top secret. As a result, only a few officials are aware of it with many in Rajuk being kept in the dark."

Her 15 years in power were marked by unchecked nepotism and corruption. She offered various undue benefits such as promotion, posting, Rajuk plots to government officials and her cohorts who blindly supported her regime. 

The allotment of 60 kathas of land is just a part of her policy. The story beats the greedy peasant named Pakhom in Leo Tolstoy's short story "How Much Land Does a Man Need" and the zamindar in Tagore's Dui Bigha Jomi [Two bighas of land].

The stain on her moral compass appears to be more egregious than the question of legality of the allocation. Isn't it a sign of her moral turpitude?

Shakhawat Liton, Deputy Executive Editor, The Business Standard. Sketch: TBS