Resignation statement news ‘fake’

Former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy yesterday doubled down on his earlier claim that his mother did not resign.
“The recent resignation statement attributed to my mother published in a newspaper is completely false and fabricated,” he said in his verified X handle.
“I have just confirmed with her that she did not make any statement either before or since leaving Dhaka,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, in an interview with AFP, he thanked New Delhi for “saving her life”, accused the interim government of allowing “mob rule” and warned of chaos ahead without swift elections.
Hasina, 76, fled by a helicopter to longtime ally India in a culmination of a student-led uprising on August 5.
“Right now in Bangladesh, you have mob rule,” Joy told AFP from Washington.
He pointed to the ouster of top officials, including the chief justice, central bank governor and police chief, following protesters’ demands.
“If the mob tomorrow says, ‘no, we want this person in the interim government changed’, they will have to be changed,” he said.
Yunus has said he wants elections “within a few months”, but Joy warned of risks if they were delayed.
“It’s in their best interest to hold elections… to have a return to a legitimate government that has the legitimacy of the people and true authority,” he said.
“Otherwise, it’s just going to devolve into chaos.”
Hasina swept the January elections but only after a poll denounced as neither free nor fair and boycotted by genuine rivals after a crackdown during which thousands of opposition party members were arrested.
Members of Hasina’s millions-strong Awami League have gone into hiding since she fled. There have been reprisal attacks against them and party offices have been torched.
But Joy said the party was critical to the political future of the South Asian nation of some 170 million people.
“We have tens of millions of followers; they’re not going anywhere,” he said.
“You’re not going to be able to establish democracy in Bangladesh without the Awami League. It will never be accepted by half the people of the country at least.”
“It’s going to be between the BNP and the Awami League,” Joy said. “We need to work together.”
He sought to divert blame for his mother’s ouster onto others in government.
“Were mistakes made? Of course,” he said. “They were made by people at the bottom, or in the chain of command… Blaming my mother for it is unfortunate.”
While accepting that police officers who fired on protesters had gone too far, he argued that there was violence on both sides.
“Some of the police used excessive force but there were attacks on the police too — police members were killed as well. The violence wasn’t one-sided,” he said.
“And then as it escalated further, the protesters started attacking police with firearms, weapons.”
He alleged unidentified foreign forces had supported the protests, a claim for which he provided no evidence.
“I believe, at this point, it is from beyond Bangladesh,” he said.