BNP-led alliance a thorn in side of country
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the BNP-led 20-party alliance had turned into a thorn in the side of the country as it was comprised of anti-liberation elements, killers and rapists who did not want peace and development of the nation.
"Apart from war criminals and Razakars who killed our brothers and raped our sisters in 1971, there are perpetrators of the seven-murder at Dhaka University [in 1974] in the alliance... They are kind of a thorn in the side of the nation," she told a reunion of Awami Jubo League at Suhrawardy Udyan in the capital.
The programme, chaired by Jubo League Chairman Omar Faroque Chowdhury, marks the 42nd founding anniversary of the AL's youth wing.
Referring to the alliance's "threats" to her government, Hasina said the threats would not work; Bangladesh would move forward.
She also doubted whether the 20-party alliance chief, Khaleda Zia, believes in the country's Liberation War. "What will she say when demands are made from her rally for the release of the convicted war criminals?"
Hasina said there was no room for the killers, rapists and arsonists of 1971 on this soil.
The BNP chief will have to answer to the people "why she resorted to killings, violence, and vandalism ahead of the [last national] elections", the AL president said.
"Did she think that these would stop the war crimes trial?" she said, adding that it was the right of those who lost their near and dear ones in 1971 to have justice.
The prime minister said there were pressures from abroad about stopping the war crimes trial but they did not give in. The government is trying the war criminals as per pledge, and it will go on till all verdicts are executed, she added.
The daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman said no doubt the murderer, Khandaker Mostaque Ahmed, was with AL before 1975, but BNP founder Ziaur Rahman was an associate of "Betrayer Mostaque" and these two planned and killed the four national leaders. Zia also restored her father's killers and anti-liberation forces in politics and rewarded them, she said.
Hasina said none could foil the January 5 election because youths and pro-liberation forces were alert. She added that she had fallen victim to conspiracies, as she refused to sell the country's gas to a powerful nation in 2001, when the BNP-Jamaat assumed office and resorted to torture and killings of AL men.
Turning to Jubo League, she said the organisation should avoid anything that might taint its image. She also ordered removal of all billboards taken illegally by Jubo League in the capital on the occasion within 24 hours, Jubo League chief Omar Faroque told The Daily Star.
DU Vice-Chancellor Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique, AL joint general secretary Jahangir Kabir Nanak, Nepal Youth Congress president Mahendra Yadav, and Jubo League leaders Harunur Rashid, Iqbal Mahmud Bablu, and Kazi Anisur Rahman also spoke.
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