East Pakistan: Hasina man and ex-President Hamid, 81, flees to Bangkok in a lungi!
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Days after Dhaka banned the Awami League, former President Muhammed Abdul Hamid fled Bangladesh in the wee hours last week to Bangkok, Thailand, sitting in a wheelchair and clad in a lungi, the media reported on Tuesday.
Hamid, 81, was the 16th President of Bangladesh for two terms between 2013 and 2023. A senior Awami League leader and close to ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, he also served as Speaker of the Jatiya Sangsad (National Parliament) from 2009 to 2013.
According to the media reports, with the Islamic fundamentalist interim government led by Muhammed Yunus, 85, relentlessly cracking down on Awami League leaders, Hamid quietly left Bangladesh for Thailand in the wee hours last week, becoming the latest Hasina party leader to slip out of the country.
Embarrassed, the government launched a high-level probe as to how Hamid was allowed to leave as he was an accused in at least one murder case.
Hamid boarded a Thai Airways flight from the Dhaka International Airport at 3 am and left the country while most Bangladeshis were asleep. As the interim government woke up and discovered his escape, it suspended and transferred officials and constituted a high-level probe, according to Indian Bangla dailies, Pratidin and Bartaman.
His family members said he left with his brother and brother-in-law for medical treatment, but his political opponents say that he fled to escape being tried in Bangladesh. Both the media portals carried a CCTV image of Hamid in a wheelchair, wearing a lungi.
Bangladeshi politician Hannan Masud claimed that Hamid’s fleeing the country was managed with the permission of those in power, especially President Mohammed Shahabuddin Chuppu, so that he could avoid being tried, according to a report in Amader Somoy.
His house was among those demolished by fundamentalists and Islamic radicals during the Bulldozer Programme in February 2025, when even the Dhanmondi 32 House (turned into a museum) of Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was destroyed.
On Monday, a gazette notification was released, officially banning Hasina’s Awami League under a revised anti-terrorism law. Bangladesh’s election commission also cancelled the registration of the Awami League, barring it from contesting polls.
Formed in 1949, the Awami League led the movement for the autonomy of Bengalis in the then East Pakistan for decades and eventually led to the Liberation War in 1971.
With Hasina and several other Awami League leaders forced into exile, former President Hamid’s leaving for Thailand has raised a storm as there are many who would have wanted him to be tried and punished in Bangladesh.
