BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia runs party activities from her residence in Dhaka Cantonment although Cantonment Board laws forbid politics there, alleged Awami League (AL) Joint General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam yesterday.

In a press statement, the AL spokesperson also said when AL President Sheikh Hasina was in the opposition she was barred from entering the cantonment.

Ashrafs statement came to refute BNP leader Prof Abdul Mannan’s remarks on Thursday about the prime minister's statement in parliament on Opposition Leader Khaleda's cantonment house. Ashraf termed Mannan's remark "indecorous" and "audacious" and said it was "distortion of fact and ill motivated".

Ashraf, also LGRD and cooperatives minister, urged Khaleda and her party to rise above greed and hand over the cantonment house to the government responding positively to the proposal for construction of apartments fcr the families of the army officers killed in Pilkhana carnage.

He also urged BNP leaders to refrain from spreading "false propaganda and misleading information" on the humanitarian proposal.

Referring to the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family and four national leaders, the AL spokesperson said none of the post-1975 governments gave the families of these heroic sons and martyrs even an inch of land free of cost.

"But after the killing of Ziaur Rahman, the then BNP gov’ernment and army chief HM Ershad gave Khaleda Zia 10 bighas of land with a house on Mainul Road in Dhaka Cantonment and another house at Gulshan free of cost." he said.

Zia's bank account and land at Savar and Joarsahara in Khaleda's name were "completely concealed under the fable of Zia's broken suitcase and tom vest to grab government property". The state provided Khaleda and her two sons with all their livelihood expenses, cars, houses and education, he added.

Bangabandhu's daughters Hasina and Sheikh Rehana sacrificed their ownership of their father's house on Dhanmondi road 32 for the Bangabandhu Memorial Trust. In 2001, the then /\L government allocated a house on one bigha land in Dhanmondi for Rehana but assuming power in late 2001 the BNP-led alliance government took back the house, Ashraf added.

He said it is well known to the people that Khaleda and her sons have mysteriously amassed huge money and property in the past three decades. Khaleda whitened a large amount of money during the rule of the last caretaker government. Her two sons also siphoned off crores of taka.

"Khaleda Zia should return state properties including the cantonment house to the people," Ashraf said in the statement