BNP’s acting chairman Tarique Rahman has steadfastly safeguarded his party with resilience and wisdom in adverse times. Over the past 17 years, he has not only protected the BNP but also strengthened it, continuously fostering new perspectives and political thoughts within Bangladesh’s political arena.

His sacrifices and political foresight are now praised at both home and abroad.

Yet, it was this very Tarique Rahman whom Prothom Alo Editor Matiur Rahman sought to eliminate from Bangladesh’s politics. In breach of journalistic norms and ethics, the Prothom Alo-The Daily Star clique launched ugly, foul-mouthed attacks against him. Matiur Rahman was the chief architect of the blueprint to brand Tarique Rahman as corrupt and controversial. To tarnish his image nationally and internationally, the Prothom Alo-The Daily Star clique conspired to implicate him in the 21 August grenade attack.

To appease the Awami League, the Prothom Alo and The Daily Star spun a fabricated story about the 21 August grenade attack. The way these two newspapers published imaginary accounts of the 21 August attack was later directly copied

by state intelligence reports during the Awami League regime. Since Tarique Rahman embodies nationalist politics, this group ceaselessly tried to associate him with militancy to serve the Indian agenda.

Notably, in 2007, the 1/11 takeover emerged as a product of the depoliticisation conspiracy led by the Prothom Alo-The Daily Star clique. An unelected government seized power. Under then-Army chief Moeen U Ahmed and Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed, this unelected regime launched a character assassination campaign against politicians following the prescription of the Prothom Alo and The Daily Star. These newspapers became mouthpieces of this campaign. It was during this time that the so-called ‘Minus Formula’ was introduced based on the strategy of these papers.

However, simply removing the two top leaders could not depoliticise the country. From the 2001 elections onwards, Tarique Rahman had already gained immense popularity among the youth. As BNP’s senior joint secretary general, he introduced new ideas and innovations in politics. This is why the Prothom Alo and The Daily Star targeted him first - unleashing a barrage of vile falsehoods against him. 

The labelling of Tarique Rahman as a so-called corrupt figure was a dreadful example of lies and propaganda campaign launched by the Prothom Alo and The Daily Star - arguably the darkest chapter in Bangladesh’s history of yellow journalism.
Matiur Rahman, editor of the Prothom Alo, is considered the father of yellow journalism in Bangladesh. He not only published reports advocating the removal of the two leaders but personally authored opinion pieces attacking Tarique Rahman by name.

On 7 June 2007, a commentary by Matiur Rahman was published on the Prothom Alo’s front page, titled ‘Tarique’s Corruption Must Be Tried’. In it, Matiur claimed that a full affidavit of Tarique Rahman, elder son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, had been published in the Manabzamin newspaper. The affidavit, allegedly bearing Tarique Rahman’s signature, reportedly contained a confession offering apology to his family, the people of the country, BNP leaders, activists and supporters for being aware of his friend Giasuddin Al Mamun’s illegal wealth but not stopping it, and for allowing money transfers at home and abroad under the guise of political expenses.

Matiur Rahman, in the same piece, went further to brand Tarique Rahman as a ‘scion of corruption’ and demanded his immediate trial. However, investigations later revealed that no such affidavit had ever been signed by Tarique Rahman. It was a fabricated document produced by the then DGFI (military intelligence agency).
Failing to extract confessions of corruption through torture, they forged Tarique Rahman’s signature on this fake affidavit. Its content was authored by Matiur Rahman. Shockingly, the Prothom Alo published this absurd, made-up document to portray the voice of the nation’s youth, Tarique Rahman, as a corrupt figure and demand his trial. Even when it was later proven to be fake, Matiur Rahman neither apologised nor expressed regret.

Thereafter, to serve the Indian agenda, efforts were made to invent militant links with Tarique Rahman. In pursuing this, the architects of the ‘Minus Formula’ fabricated stories connecting him to the 21 August grenade attack and the 10-truck arms smuggling cases. Recently, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court dismissed the BNP’s involvement in the 21 August grenade attack as ‘fictional’. The apex court acquitted all the convicts in the 21 August grenade attack case.
Despite this, the Prothom Alo relentlessly published fabricated and unethical reports linking Tarique Rahman to the incident. The newspaper even fabricated the supposed involvement of Mufti Hannan in the 21 August attack.

Moreover, the Prothom Alo ‘discovered’ militancy connections in the 10-truck arms seizure case too. The clique made several attempts to dramatise this issue and reportedly instructed all its local correspondents to ‘discover militancy’ stories across the country.

As part of that directive, on 30 January 2007, the Prothom Alo published a report that essentially labelled the BNP as a ‘terrorist organisation’. The headline reads “8 BNP ministers-MPs patronise militancy”. It directly accused eight BNP ministers and MPs of militancy, including late Barrister Aminul Haque, popular MP and former mayor Mizanur Rahman Minu, Ruhul Quddus Talukder Dulu, Nadim Mostafa and Abu Hena. This front-page report, featuring their photographs, was an outrageous example of unethical journalism.

To directly implicate eight influential leaders and MPs of a political party in militancy without any evidence is a grave crime. Yet even after committing such heinous, anti-national offences, the Prothom Alo-The Daily Star clique remains beyond accountability. During the BNP government, the Prothom Alo regularly published made-up stories connecting various imaginary militant incidents with the party.

Through publishing the alleged statement by Mufti Hannan claiming “I support the 4-party Alliance”, the Prothom Alo tried to brand the entire alliance as a militant coalition. It was later proven that Mufti Hannan’s statement was false - yet another instance of Prothom Alo’s deceit.

But the question is what did the Prothom Alo gain by branding the BNP as a militant political party? Through this, they essentially tried to portray Bangladesh itself as a ‘militant state’. This gave the Awami League an opportunity to illegally seize power and justify it globally. In essence, the Prothom Alo and The Daily Star were so invested in this ‘militancy drama’ just to unlawfully keep the Awami League in power. The Prothom Alo and The Daily Star carried out these actions to implement the agendas of the Awami League and India.

Investigations reveal that the plan to politically eliminate Tarique Rahman by falsely accusing him of militancy links and imaginary corruption was orchestrated by Matiur Rahman and Mahfuz Anam, editor of The Daily Star.
As part of this scheme, Prothom Alo and The Daily Star relentlessly published exaggerated and false corruption stories against Tarique Rahman and his late brother Arafat Rahman Koko. These two newspapers engaged in a dirty game, using fabricated allegations of corruption and irregularities to defame and malign the Zia family.
The baseless lies spread by the Prothom Alo and The Daily Star against Tarique Rahman and Begum Zia, in an attempt to brand the BNP as militant, now demand justice.