BNP making dramatic pleas as polls forthcoming: PM

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday said BNP is making dramatic pleas as the next election is approaching fast.
Addressing a discussion in the city marking 42nd martyrdom anniversary of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the prime minister said BNP-Jamaat tried to destroy a nation in the name of movement to foil the 2014 election.
‘Now BNP is making many pleas as the next general election is nearing fast,’ she said.
To foil the 2014 polls, she said, ‘They left no stone unturned . . . They committed the most heinous crime of burning people alive.’
‘BNP-Jamaat alliance, like Pakistanis, tortured the women, torched and occupied the houses of people,’ she said adding that ‘it’s their politics, they cannot do welfare of the people, they can only torture people and destroy everything.’
Dhaka south and north chapters of Bangladesh Awami League arranged the discussion at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the capital.
Urging the party workers to take a vow to build a hunger and poverty free Bangladesh, the prime minister said, ‘Building the dreamland of Bangabandhu is the best way to pay homage to him.’
‘Bangabandhu is not alive amongst us. But we have his ideology and with that ideology and principle we want to take forward the country,’ she said.
President of Dhaka south chapter Haji Abul Hasnat presided over the meeting while presidium members of the party Abdur Razzak and Faruk Khan, central committee members Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya and Quamrul Islam and general secretary of Dhaka south chapter Shahe Alam Murad addressed the meeting among others.
Criticising BNP-Jamaat alliance for their destructive politics, the prime minister said, ‘Their character was best exposed in 2013 when they burnt thousands of copies of the Quran, set fire in mosques and killed Awami league leader Azam Khan when he was reading the Quran inside a mosque.’
‘In the name of movement BNP-Jamaat in fact unleashed a movement of extremis. In three years from 2013 to 2015 they have killed as many as 500 people including 27 members of the law enforcement agencies, burnt about 3,500 people and destroyed 582 schools. Many families were destroyed and some of them are living on government support, she said.
The prime minister said in the name of foiling election in 2014, BNP-Jamaat hurled petrol bombs on innocent people, killed election officials though she tried her best to pursue BNP to take part in the polls and form an interim government on the basis of consensus.
Paying her tributes to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and martyrs of August 15, the prime minister said Bangabandhu had sacrificed his personal happiness and comfort while struggling for nation’s welfare. He instilled the spirit of independence in people.
Sheikh Hasina noted that the Pakistani rulers had tried to hang Bangabandhu twice, but inflexible Bangabandhu continued his struggle to free the nation from subjugation. Pakistani rulers could not hang him as pressure of the international community mounted, she said.

Source: New Age