Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday urged BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia to call off her blockade programme, saying that her motive to overthrow the government would not come true as she had failed to do it even in 81 days.
“Khaleda Zia won’t go back home and stop the blockade before killing me. But, I hope that if she has any sense, she would withdraw her ‘ceaseless programme’ as she could not be successful by imposing such senseless programme for 81 days.”She said this while addressing a discussion organised by Bangladesh Awami League marking the 45th Independence and National Day at Krishibid Institution here.
Sheikh Hasina said anti-liberation forces are still active to frustrate “our independence”. They tried it through killing Bangabandhu in 1975. Now Khaleda Zia is patronizing the anti-liberation forces to complete the mission, she added.
“But their goal won’t be successful without public support. I have to work until the dream of Bangabandhu to build a poverty- and hunger-free country is fulfilled,” she said.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, also the president of Bangladesh Awami League, presided over the meeting.
Advisory Council members of Awami League Amir Hossain Amu and Tofail Ahmed, Presidium members Matia Chowdhury and Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim and General Secretary of Dhaka City Awami League Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury, among others, took part in the discussion.
Joint General Secretary of Awami League Mahbub-ul-Alam Hanif, Joint Secretary Jahangir Kabir Nanak also addressed the meeting.
Criticising Khaleda Zia for not going to Shaheed Minar and National Memorial this year to pay homage to the martyrs of Language Movement and Liberation War, the Prime Minister said by doing this Begum Zia has proved it once again that she is a cohort of the defeated forces of 1971.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said the heinous activities of BNP-Jamaat cohorts are comparable with the atrocities of Pakistani occupation forces in 1971. They are killing people in the same pattern that was perpetrated by the Pakistani forces.
BNP is burning people alive, which is tantamount to mass killing and are sheer militant activities. Those people who have minimum humanity cannot support it. But, a section of so-called conscious citizens are vocal about the human rights of the killers than the victims of their brutality, she said.
“The so-called section of conscious people is also silent about the misappropriation of the fund of orphans,” she said.
Sheikh Hasina turned down the claim that portrays Ziaur Rahman as the introducer of “multi-party” democracy. “Zia presented the nation with a “curfew democracy” as the country was under curfew every night from August 15, 1975 up to the time of general election in 1986.”
“People had no basic rights from 1975 to 1991 until restoration of democracy. They got back their rights when Awami League took office in 1996, but in 2001 they deterred Awami League form coming to power again through conspiracy, she said.
