Dhaka, Monday 22 December 2008: Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said she is not scared of any assassination threats, reacting to intelligence reports that terrorists were planning to kill her.

Hasina, now in the midst of a countrywide campaign for parliamentary polls due Dec 29, said at a rally Sunday: “You have already read in newspapers about the apprehension of attacks on me. I am the daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and I am not scared of any threats.”

Hasina, who now heads the Awami League, and her sisters were the only ones to survive the mass murder of her family, including their father and then President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in a military-backed coup in August 1975.

Security and intelligence agencies last month warned Hasina of possible attempts on her life by extremist groups including the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) and Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), the Daily Star newspaper said. It said that the Special Security Force (SSF) had assumed responsibility for her security.

Agencies recently reported that Indian intelligence agencies had warned Bangladesh that a six-member suicide squad of the banned HuJI had been trained to assassinate Hasina, Bangladeshi media said. It added that an officer of Pakistan’s spy agency ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) had trained the HuJI men for two months at Kaliganj in Bangladesh’s Satkhira district.
(Agency)