Prime Minister’s Political Assistant Rashed Khan on Tuesday described the Jamaat-e-Islami's embrace of Major (Retd.) Akhtaruzzaman as a union of two razakars, the colloquial for traitors.

While Jamaat are usually tagged as razakars for the role they willingly took on in 1971 during the Liberation War, Akhtaruzzaman, Rashed alleged, had called the participants in the 2024 July Uprising as “children of Razakars”.

Rashed wrote: “Seeing Jamaat's programme for Major Akhtaruzzaman today, people are saying that the Razakars of 1971 have welcomed a Razakar of 2024 with flowers,” he said, referring to a reception for Akhtaruzzaman by the Jamaat Ameer, Dr Shafiqur Rahman, following the former's release from jail on Tuesday.

“Razakars of 1971 have welcomed a Razakar of 2024 with flowers,” Rashed Khan wrote, in a post published on his verified Facebook page in the evening.

Rashed said that he had also been present at a talk show organised by `Face the People’ after the July Uprising, where Akhtaruzzaman allegedly referred to the protesters as “children of Razakars”.

“He attacked me too, calling me a child of Razakars, and said that those taking part in the movement were Jamaat-Shibir activists and children of Razakars,” Rashed wrote.

He said, when asked whether all the protesters were children of Razakars, Akhtaruzzaman allegedly said they were “100 percent” the children of Razakars.

In his post, Rashed noted how Akhtaruzzaman, whom he described as a supporter of the July Uprising's opponents and perpetrators of the killings, had now become a Jamaat leader.

He questioned how the freedom fighter, who had previously called Jamaat a terrorist organisation, had now learned to chant “Nara-e-Takbir”, and was being presented as a committed believer and people's leader.

“What more does one need to enter politics in this society if one learns to use religion for political purposes?” Rashed asked.

Addressing Jamaat, he questioned whether former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would also be allowed to join the party if she apologised and expressed interest in doing so.

Jamaat leaders recently accorded a reception to its associate member and retired Major Akhtaruzzaman after he secured bail in a case over allegedly threatening the executive director of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport and assaulting a security supervisor.

Rashed said Akhtaruzzaman had remarked, “Yahya Khan could not stop it, so how will you stop it?”

He then sarcastically suggested that the Jamaat Ameer might have been uncomfortable with Akhtaruzzaman's reference to Yahya Khan and 1971, despite previously praising him as not merely a Jamaat leader but a leader of the entire country.