With the Awami League banned from political activities under the current BNP-led government, ruling party leaders have intensified a campaign of historical distortion targeting the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and his family.
On October 21, 2026, BNP Chief Whip and Barguna-2 MP Nurul Islam Moni claimed on DBC News that “in 1974, one million people died of starvation. At that time, wearing a golden crown, Sheikh Mujib’s son got married.”
Fact-checkers have labelled the statement as disinformation, misleading, and factually false.
The 1974 famine in Bangladesh was severe before the November–December harvest. After the crop arrived, the famine situation returned to normal. By contrast, the formal weddings of Bangabandhu’s two sons, Sheikh Kamal and Sheikh Jamal, took place on 17 July 1975 — at least seven to eight months after the famine had ended. The claim that the marriages occurred during the famine is therefore chronologically impossible.
On the occasion of the sons’ weddings, gifts arrived from home and abroad. Among them were a golden crown and a golden boat. Only these two items were retained as souvenirs; on Bangabandhu’s orders, the remaining valuable gifts were deposited in the government treasury. There is no evidence that any son of Bangabandhu wore a golden crown as a personal luxury during a famine.
The false narrative fits a longer pattern of attacks on Bangabandhu’s legacy. BNP founder and former President Ziaur Rahman is widely described by critics as having played a key behind-the-scenes role in the conspiracy surrounding the 15 August 1975 assassination of Bangabandhu and most of his family. After the Indemnity Ordinance of 1975 shielded the killers, Zia’s government validated it through the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution in 1979. The assassins were rehabilitated, given diplomatic postings and highly paid positions in foreign missions, and protected for decades.
Zia’s widow and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia continued that policy during her tenures, allowing several self-confessed killers to remain in diplomatic or protected positions abroad while BNP leaders spread propaganda against Bangabandhu.
With the Awami League prohibited from formal political activity and unable to contest elections or organise openly, BNP figures face little institutional pushback for such claims. Attempts to portray Bangabandhu’s family as indifferent to the suffering of ordinary people during the 1974 famine have repeatedly failed basic chronological and factual scrutiny. The sons’ weddings occurred well after the famine had eased, and state gifts were handled according to official procedure.
The fact-check concludes clearly: the claim that Bangabandhu’s sons got married during the 1974 famine is not true. As the BNP consolidates power with its principal rival banned, such distorted narratives continue to circulate in public discourse alongside the wholesale blame on the Awami League for everything since the jihadist-army coup of August 5, 2024.