A Government minister’s family holiday home has been ransacked after her dictator aunt was ousted from power in Bangladesh.
The luxury retreat once frequented by Tulip Siddiq, the City minister, was looted and vandalised after Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s longest-serving prime minister, fled the country.
Ms Siddiq’s mother, Sheikh Rehana, is the sister of 76-year-old Hasina, who is now in India, having been ousted after 15 years in power.
The gardens of the property in the village of Kanaiya, owned by Ms Siddiq’s father, featured signs reading “Tulip’s Territory”, images of which were broadcast in Bangladeshi media this week.
During Hasina’s premiership, opponents were attacked, arrested and secretly imprisoned as the regime carried out extrajudicial killings. As the country transitions to an interim government, buildings linked to the former leader and her family have been targeted by angry citizens.
Local media have claimed that Ms Siddiq’s family still used the property in Kanaiya until recently, but The Telegraph understands the minister last visited in 2019 and she has never been there with her aunt.
A plaque on a wall and another brick planter around a garden area with her name were installed a number of years ago. Her father wanted to create permanent family memories by replacing painted signs made when she was younger with the “Tulip’s Territory” plaques.
The property itself is called “Rupi’s Retreat”, and it includes signs dedicated to other family members, including one referring to “Bobby’s Bungalow”. Ms Siddiq does not own any part of the estate.
The estate, 20 miles north of the capital Dhaka, includes a large red duplex house overlooking a huge pond surrounded by greenery and fruit trees.
The wider plot is said to include guest rooms and several more ponds but has now been looted and vandalised, with windows smashed and debris littering floors.
One Bangladeshi outlet said the estate is “full of aesthetic and natural beauty” and “a perfect place to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life”.
It has reported that Ms Siddiq and other family used to visit in winter, and at other times cars with national flags would be seen entering and law enforcement would guard the gates.
“It speaks to the heart of garden luxury,” a local newspaper said, also claiming that a minister in Hasina’s government had held emergency meetings there.
Following the fall of Hasina, Ms Siddiq has been facing questions over her ties to her aunt and why she did not raise concerns about the authoritarian regime.
Hasina was present in the Commons gallery as her niece, who became an MP in 2015, made her maiden speech. On social media, the minister hailed her aunt as a “strong female role model” for her own daughter.
Fresh questions over her family links come after Ms Siddiq was accused of failing to help a British-trained barrister detained for nearly a decade in brutal conditions under her aunt’s authoritarian regime.
Lawyers representing 40-year-old Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem Arman, who vanished in 2016, said Ms Siddiq could have used her personal connections to free him earlier from eight years of secret imprisonment.
He was one of hundreds of people who disappeared under Hasina’s regime, and was finally released earlier this month as her government collapsed.
While she has been criticised for not using her personal connections to free the lawyer, it is understood that Ms Siddiq wrote to Boris Johnson, then foreign secretary, over the case in December 2017, after it was raised by constituents, believing this was the correct protocol.
Ms Siddiq has previously faced scrutiny over her properties in the UK after failing to declare a London rental. The parliamentary standards commissioner cleared the MP, saying the property had been inadvertently registered late.
Asked about the holiday home in Bangladesh, a Labour party spokesman said: “This is not Tulip’s property and Tulip does not own any property outside of the United Kingdom.”