How long will AL leader Shahed Reza continue running NOC?

One of the top beneficiaries and member of banned outfit Awami League's international affairs committee Syed Shahed Reza is still holding the Secretary General post in Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA). This highly controversial chap with a profile tattered with corruption and nepotism who backed up Awami League loyalists directly during last 15 years has not been yet replaced though a broad range of reshuffles took place in state machineries since August 2024.

Syed Shahed Reza played a vicious role in attempting to dismantle the July Mass Upsurge which is well-known to almost everyone. Syed Shahed Reza's photographs with ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and other senior Awami League (AL) leaders have gone viral over and over again while AL was in power.

He spoiled Bangladesh's sports platforms with explicit political intervention and he did not allow dedicated sports organizers in BOA elections during last three years. Syed Shahed Reza polluted the National Olympic Committee (NOC) with narcotics, womanizing, political interferences and intimidation from spy agencies while Sheikh Hasina was in power. Having Syed Shahed Reza inside BOA, who is one of the most intimate allies with the overthrown regime, categorically contradicts with the spirit of the July Revolution.

SK Bashir Ahmed Mamun is one of the accomplices in Syed Shahed Reza's unethical activities during the unseated ruling party's tenure. Syed Shahed Reza even compelled Brigadier General (Retd) Shams A. Khan to quit Bangladesh Olympic Association from the Director General post. Syed Shahed Reza allegedly cashes on the name of Chief of Staff of Bangladesh Army General Waker Uz Zaman to silence opponents and critics. This is how Syed Shahed Reza has placed Bangladesh Army in front of debates.

Syed Shahed Reza enjoyed power and pomp during Sheikh Hasina's repressive term based on his friendship with Sheikh Kamal. Syed Shahed Reza forced different sports federations to organize competitions on names like Sheikh Kamal, Sheikh Russell and other family members of Sheikh Hasina before Awami League was toppled by a countrywide mass uprising on 5 August 2024.

Executive Director of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) Dr. Iftekharuzzaman said that the individuals who inflicted the country's different organs with corruption and political influence during the immediate past government should be subjected to precise investigations and required measures must be taken to punish them so that corruption and anarchy cannot raise their ugly heads in Bangladesh once again.

Abdul Quader, one of the leading coordinators of Anti-Discriminatory Students' Movement said that no attempts to reinstate fascist agents will be tolerated. Abdul Quader called upon the interim government to thoroughly scrutinize all administrative units to find out loyalists left behind by Sheikh Hasina's tyrannical regime.