By Ashis Ray

London, Sep 19 (IANS): Swraj Paul, an Indian-origin peer in the UK's House of Lords, has committed to invest in order to create a girls college in Dhaka.

He disclosed to IANS that he made this pledge to Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during a meeting between them in London over the weekend.

Paul, at the request of then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, put up Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rehana in London to protect them, after their father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of Bangladesh's freedom movement and then head of government, and the rest of his family were brutally killed in a coup d'etat in Dhaka in August 1975.

Their lives were in considerable danger at the time and there was no way they could have returned to Bangladesh in the circumstances.

Paul, 91, added: "I spent an hour with Hasina reminiscing about the past."

Hasina is in London to attend the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away at the age of 96 on September 8.

Sheikh Rehana's daughter Tulip Siddique, is a rising British politician who is a Labour party MP in the House of Commons.