Within days since the shocking exit of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh Army on Wednesday announced Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus-led interim government is set to take oath tomorrow, August 8. According to Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman, Yunus is slated to return to Bangladesh tomorrow from Paris, where he currently resides, to attend the swearing-in ceremony that is scheduled to be held in evening.
"I’m looking forward to going back home and seeing what’s happening there", said the Nobel Peace Prize Winner while speaking to media in Paris.
A day before,President Mohammed Shahabuddin appointed Yunus as the head of Bangladesh's interim government followed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's resignation and leaving the country amid furious anti-government protests.
The decision was made in a meeting of President Shahabuddin with chiefs of the three services and a 13-member delegation of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement at Bangabhaban tonight, President's Press Secretary Md. Joynal Abedin said.
The meeting was also attended by Army Chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman, Navy Chief Admiral M Nazmul Hassan, Air Chief Marshal Hasan Mahmood Khan, Dhaka University Law Department Professor Asif Nazrul and International Relations Department Professor Tanzim Uddin Khan.
84-year-old Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his anti-poverty campaign through the Grameen Bank, is currently residing in Paris. However, welcoming the ouster of Sheikh Hasina’s regime, he described the development as the “second liberation" of the country.
Yunus had been in a protracted row with Hasina’s government due to obscure reasons while authorities initiated a series of investigations against him after she came to power in 2008.
Bangladesh authorities launched a review of the statutory Grameen Bank's activities in 2011 and fired Yunus as its founding managing director on charges of violating the government retirement regulation. He was charged under dozens of cases. In January, Yunus was sentenced to six months in jail by a court on charges of labour law violation.
