No Decision Yet On President Shahabuddin's Removal: Bangladesh's Interim Govt

The incident took place after President Mohammed Shahabuddin said he did not have any documentary evidence of Hasina resigning as prime minister.

Dhaka: Bangladesh's interim government on Wednesday said it has not taken any decision on the removal of President Mohammed Shahabuddin from office, a day after protesters tried to storm his official residence, demanding him to quit his post over comments that raised questions on prime minister Sheikh Hasina's resignation.

In an interview with Bangla daily Manab Zamin last week, the president said that he did not have any documentary evidence of Hasina resigning as prime minister before leaving the country on August 5.

Several hundred protesters on Tuesday tried to storm Bangabhaban, the president's official residence, demanding Shahabuddin's resignation. The agitators scuffled with policemen, who later fired sound grenades to prevent their entry into the presidential palace. Army troops eventually intervened to bring the situation under control.

According to media reports, the overnight clash left three protestors wounded. "The interim government has not taken any decision regarding the matter," Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus' Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam told a media briefing when asked about the government's stance on the removal of President Shahabuddin from office.

He said the government has beefed up security around Bangabhaban and also asked the protestors to vacate the area. Alam's comments came shortly after a three-member delegation of former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) met Chief Adviser Yunus and asked him to be careful against the creation of any constitutional crisis afresh.

Following his nearly 30-minute meeting with Yunus, BNP delegation leader Nazrul Islam Khan told newsmen in front of the Chief Adviser's official Jamuna residence that they did not discuss specifically the president’s resignation or removal issue. “(But) We noted that everyone has to be careful so that no constitutional or political crisis is created afresh,” he said in reply to a question on whether there was any discussion between the BNP delegation and Yunus on the president’s resignation.

Alam described the BNP meeting with Yunus as part of a continued “political dialogue”. Meanwhile, Information Ministry Affairs Adviser Nahid Islam, who is also a leader of the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement which spearheaded the campaign that led to the ouster of Hasina, said whether the president will remain in office or not is not a constitutional matter, but a political decision.

"This interim government has been formed with people’s support. We formed the government retaining the existing Constitution and the President at that time for the sake of stability and security of the state," he said. But, Islam added, “If we feel that this setup is hindering the interim government's activities or the people are dissatisfied with it, we will consider and re-evaluate this matter".

In his interview with the Bangla Daily, Shahabuddin said he heard that Hasina had resigned as prime minister before she fled Bangladesh, but he does not have documentary evidence. Despite numerous efforts, the president said, he had failed to find any documents. “Perhaps she did not have the time,” Shahabuddin said.

Legal experts opine that the president’s statement mattered little amid the existing reality after Hasina’s ouster and the dissolution of parliament. Meanwhile, barbed wire fencing was installed alongside barricades at the main gate of Bangabhaban, while APBN (Armed Police Battalion), BGB (Border Guard Bangladesh), police, and army personnel have been deployed in armed positions around the area. Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs), water cannons, and riot control vehicles have also been readied in case the protests escalate further, The Daily Star newspaper reported.

However, tensions remained high as protests continued to surge, with various groups demonstrating outside Bangabhaban since Tuesday. A robust four-layer security cordon was established along the main road leading to Bangabhaban, bolstered by a three-layer barbed wire fence to deter unauthorised access.

Nobel laureate Yunus, 84, became Bangladesh's interim government's Chief Adviser on August 8 after Prime Minister Hasina fled to India on August 5 amidst student-led mass protests.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement set a deadline for Shahabuddin’s removal in seven days as they laid a five-point demand that included scrapping of Bangladesh’s Constitution.

“Our first point (of the five-point demand) is immediate scrapping of the “pro-Mujb (Bangladesh’s founding leader) ’72 Constitution which kept Chuppu (President’s nickname) in office,” one of the coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement Hasnat Abdullah said.

“The (1972) Constitution will have to be replaced by writing a new one against the backdrop of the 2024 mass upheaval,” he said at a massive protest rally held at Central Shaheed Minar in the national capital.

He said if the government failed to meet the demands by this week, “we will return to the streets with full force". Several other groups joined Tuesday’s protests alongside the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement at the premier Dhaka University campus, Shaheed Minar and Bangabhaban, with some of them demanding the president's resignation within 24 hours.