Gano Forum President Dr Kamal Hossain on Monday called upon all to get united as the country has been under the grip of ‘goons’ for ‘lack of democracy’.
“The country has been under a sickening regime. The goons have been unleashed against the students. We can’t call them anything else rather than hooligans who are attacking helpless students and people wielding with rods and sticks,” he said.
Speaking at a solidarity rally, Dr Kamal further said, “There’s now hooliganism in the country, not democracy. We want to see Bangladesh free from hoodlums. It’s now our national duty to free the country from their (goons) grip. It won’t be possible to annihilate people when they’re united.”
Udbhigna Nagorik Samaj (Worried Civil Society) organised the rally at the Jatiya Press Club protesting the ‘repression’ on demonstrating students seeking safe roads.
Dr Kamal, also a freedom fighter and a renowned jurist, said it cannot be accepted that ‘hooliganism’ will be established in Bangladesh where lakhs of people sacrificed their blood for its independence. Bangabandhu and Tajuddin Ahmed led the Liberation War, and laid down their lives for ensuring democratic politics.
He said those who let loose the goons have to be identified. “Let the country be freed from hoodlums, even at the cost of my life. I don’t want to remain alive among goons.”
Speaking at the programme, Bikalpa Dhara president AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury said the ruling party ‘ruffians’ equipped with rods and arms are openly attacking students with the help of police.
“It’s shameful for us that the ruling party goons are attacking students who has been on a movement for safe roads and well-run country, he observed.”
He said the government cannot realise that the steps it is taking against students are unjustified. “It’s duty of all to put up a resistance when injustice gets legalised.”
The BDB leader said the government will not be able to realise its unjustified acts if people do not raise their voice together.
He said the students imbued with patriotism have waged the movement for removing injustice and disorder from the country. “Won’t we support it? You will say we’re doing politics if we give support to it. Is politics banned in the country?”
B Chowdhury, also a former president, said politicians are born to do politics for the cause of people’s welfare.
“The guardians have all the rights to register their protest. How do you (govt) expect we’ll remain quiet when you make injustice as laws? We’ll surely raise our voice. No one has the right to kill our children,” he added.
BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir also spoke at the programme asking political parties to forge a national unity to overcome the country’s prevailing ‘dangerous’ situation.
The BNP leader further said, “It’ll be very difficult to get rid of the country’s current dangerous situation without a national unity. The students have opened our eyes. Their movement has shaken all of us. Our boys have brought a scope for us to get united,” the BNP leader he said.
Nagorik Oikya Convener Mahmudur Rahman Manna, Gonoshasthya Kendra founder Zafrullah Chowdhury, Dhaka University Prof Asif Nazrul and Bangladesh Bank’s former governor Dr Salehuddin Ahmed, among others, spoke at the programme.
source:UNB
