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Zia helped Rashid's family after killings

Says Mehnaz after arrest

Mukhlesur Rahman
Late president Ziaur Rahman used to pay $100 a day to the family of Lt Col (retd) Khondker Abdur Rashid as hotel expenses in Thailand on their way to Libya following the assassination of Bangabandhu on August 15 in 1975, Rashid's eldest daughter yesterday disclosed.
Wife of Bangabandhu's self-proclaimed killer Rashid and his four daughters were sent to Thailand in late September 1975 where they stayed in a hotel for several months, said Assistant Commissioner Ali Akbar quoting Rashid's daughter Mehnaz Rashid.
She divulged the information to Detective Branch officials during a preliminary interrogation following her arrest early yesterday in connection with Wednesday's bomb attack on ruling Awami League lawmaker Fazle Noor Taposh.
She lias denied her involvement in theattack.
Mehnaz said from Thailand they went to Dubai and then to Libya where her parents currently live and conduct their family business.
Quoting her, Assistant Commissioner Ali Akbar said Zia with the help of the then Pakistan prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto managed to convince Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to allow Rashid and his family to live in that country.
Rashid started a manpower business in Libya and men a construction business with the help of Zia, Mehnaz told DB officials.
Mehnaz was only three when her family left the country. She studied in the USA and her sisters in London.
After completing study she served in the UN and then came to Bangladesh to organise the Freedom Party floated by her uncle Lt Col (retd) Syed Faruque Rahman, another convict in the Bangabandhu murder case.
Mehnaz said she contested in the last two parliamentary elections from Comilla-7 constituency on Freedom Party nomination. The last caretaker government asked her to organ -ise the party but it was not possible because of fund constraints.
She said her father is pious and innocent although he took part in the killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman whimsically.
Ali Akbar said during interrogation Mehnaz told them that she last talked to her father on Friday over cell phone. She has had regular conversation with her parents over phone.
Mehnaz said Ziaur Rahman gave her mother a duplex house in Gulshan "as an award" for Rashid's role in assassinating Bangabandhu. Mehnaz now lives in that house with her husband.