PM portrayed Bangladesh as a militant state
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in her recent speech at the 69th United Nations General Assembly tried to portray Bangladesh as a militant state to the world, BNP Senior Vice Chairman Tarique Rahman has alleged.
"Whenever Hasina is in power, she tries to portray Bangladesh as a militant state. This time, she did this at the UN summit,” Tarique said at a discussion on his party founder Ziaur Rahman at York Hall in East London on Monday.
The elder son of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, however, did not elaborate how in New York the prime minister tried to portray Bangladesh as a militant state.
At the programme, Tarique also urged all to initiate a mass movement against Hasina for what he said to keep Bangladesh free from militancy.
He reiterated his claim that his father Ziaur Rahman was the first president of the country.
“Sheikh Mujibur Rahman cannot be the Father of the Nation. He returned to the country with a Pakistani passport. Someone who accepts Pakistani passport even after Bangladesh's independence is a citizen of that country in the eyes of the law,” Tarique said.
"One day it will have to be explained how a Pakistani citizen became a president or prime minister of Bangladesh," the BNP leader warned.
Terming the Awami League an “evil power in Bangladeshi politics”, Tarique said, “Sheikh Hasina is no longer safe for the country. Bangladesh's independence and sovereignty are not safe [in Hasina's hand].”
He also said both Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and her daughter Sheikh Hasina never had faith in public support. “That's why they [Awami League] had to go to the court to make Mujib's contributions [to the country] recognised,” he said.
Tarique claimed that the prime minister for her political interests had formed the government with the people who were responsible for the assassination of her father in 1975. “Now, she has targeted Ziaur Rahman and his family for spreading propaganda [against them].”
“Information about the killers of Brigadier General Khaled Mosharraf will be revealed if Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu is taken into police custody,” he said.
Tarique, his mother Khaleda Zia and some top leaders of their party, BNP, have on many occasions claimed that militancy had risen in the country during the Awami League government's tenure.
However, the country did witness an unprecedented rise in extremism during the incumbency of the BNP-led government. Media reports of the time bear testimony to this.
Under the patronage of the past BNP-led government between 2001 and 2006, Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), two militant outfits, had spread their tentacles in many parts of the country.
The JMB even unleashed simultaneous bomb attacks across the country on August 17, 2005. The unprecedented blasts compelled the BNP-Jamaat government to take some measures, including banning JMB, JMJB and Huji, and arresting some leaders of those militant outfits.
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