Keep foreign friends' request, ditch Jamaat

Awami League (AL) Publicity Affairs Secretary Hasan Mahmud yesterday said in line with the request of BNP's “foreign friends” and the AL's view, the leading component of the 18-party alliance should cut ties with Jamaat-e-Islami.
He also stressed that the present AL-led government, as per the constitution, will stay for five years and turn Bangladesh into a middle-income country within this tenure.
“You may not keep our request, but you can keep the request of your foreign friends,” he said, adding that BNP had been seeking assistance from the friends for the last two and a half years.
Hasan was addressing a discussion, “Contemporary Politics”, organised by Thikana Bangladesh, a social organisation, in the capital's Jatiya Press Club.
Referring to the birth anniversary of BNP founder Ziaur Rahman which was observed yesterday, he said BNP's vow for the day should have been to quit the “politics of anarchy”.
On recent political violence on the streets, he said it became a necessity to ban those who killed people by hurling Molotov cocktails in the name of politics. “It is a question as to how those who kill innocent people want to continue politics”.