Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s image on billboards installed in Chittagong by ruling Awami League MP MA Latif set up during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s recent visit to the port city appear to be a gross distortion of reality.
Bangladesh Chhatra League activists took out a procession and organised a rally protesting against the distortion following criticism of the billboards on social media.
The billboards display a photo of the nation’s founding father, but the posture, attire, and shoes do not match those which marked him out in his lifetime.
In response to the criticism, Latif has defended himself by saying that since he was busy with the prime minister’s visit, he had assigned the job of preparing and putting up the billboards to others.
“If it’s true, it has been wrongly done. I am in Dhaka now. I’ll take steps after checking when I return,” he told southnews24.com.
Poet Kamrul Hassan Badal posted photos of the billboards on Facebook and wrote, “I can’t believe these are Bangabandhu’s images. The dress and the posture are not his.”
Chittagong City BCL General Secretary Nurul Azam Rony wrote, “MP Latif has not only distorted Bangabandhu’s image by super-imposing the image of the Father of the Nation on his own body, but has also dragged the nation down.”
Since getting the Awami League’s parliamentary nomination in 2008, Latif has waded repeatedly into controversies by his actions.
He is on record as having taken part in a programme attended by the alleged war criminal, Islami Samaj Kalyan Parishad chief Maulana Shamsuddin, and the then Jamaat-e-Islami Nayeb-e-Amir Afsar Uddin Chowdhury on Jan 31, 2009.
The three men were caught on camera sharing the same stage.
Latif, a former president of the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry, had also been at loggerheads with former mayor and Chittagong Awami League chief ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury.
Chowdhury’s followers allege Latif has links with the Jamaat-e-Islami.
