Sympathisers of BNP yet to give money to Felani family

Khadimul Islam

The family of Felani, the teenage girl who was killed by India's Border Security Force in Kurigram on January 7, is yet to receive the financial help some Bangladesh Nationalist Party-leaning freedom fighters and intellectuals earlier promised.

A sector commander in the 1971 war of independence, Hamidullah Khan, and some other intellectuals, including writer Abdul Hye Sikder and Muktijuddher

Prajanma leader Shama Obaed Islam, had visited Kurigram on February 9 under the banner of the Patriots of Bangladesh to register a protest at the killing of Felani and to provide the family with financial assistance.

The local police administration, however, foiled their programme and forced them to leave the town without visiting Felani's home.

Two months after they had publicly pledged to provide Felani's family with Tk 2 lakh, leaders of Patriots of Bangladesh and Muktijuddher Prajanma on Friday said that they are yet to hand over the money to her father Nurul Islam.

'We are thinking about how to hand over the money to Felani's father. We are thinking about bringing Felani's father to Dhaka,' Abdul Hye Sikder told New Age.

He said that Tk 1 lakh collected on behalf of the Patriots of Bangladesh had been kept in a bank account and the remaining amount promised by Muktijuddher Prajanma was with them.

When contacted, Shama Obaed Islam told New Age that the visit was organised by the Patriots of Bangladesh and she would hand over money whenever it would make appropriate arrangements.

Felani's father Nurul Islam on Wednesday told New Age, 'I am hopeful that I will receive the financial help promised by some people who earlier tried to hand over the money.'

Nurul said that he was ready to visit the place where he would be asked to to receive the financial help.

The home minister, Sahara Khatun, on February 6 visited the house of Felani's father at Colonitari of Nageswari in Kurigram and gave him Tk 3 lakh.

'I have already spent about Tk 50,000 from the money the government gave me for the treatment of my family and food for them,' he added.

Source: New Age