FORMER Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia was named in a Dhaka court last weekend as the “instigator of violence” in two fresh charg es that relate to violence during last year’s antigovernment protests .
Zia and 50 other leaders and activists of the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) were charged in the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court last sunday (29).
More than 100 people were killed in arson attacks on buses in the capital during a three month nationwide blockade called by an alliance led by the BNP.
With the fresh allegations, the 60 year old Zia faces a total of six charges over the 2015 violence.
Police and court officials said that one of the fresh two cases accused Zia of “instigating” party activists to torch two buses in Dhaka on February 10 and March 3, 2015.
Metropolitan magistrate Imdadul Haque set Tuesday (31) and Wednesday (1) for the approval and signing of the charge sheets, court police official Mirash Uddin said.
Zia is already facing a slew of graft cases.
In April, a court rejected two petitions filed by Zia, who appeared before it in a corruption case which accuses her of embezzling over $400,000 (£273,402) from a trust when she was the prime minister from 20012006.
The BNP accused the government of prime minister sheikh Hasina of executing a plan to drive the party chief out of politics by implicating her in “false cases”.
Hasina has promised justice for the victims of violence, saying the BNP and its ally, the JamaateIslami, “unleashed the violence in the name of protests to destabilise the country”.
