PM wants Khaleda to surrender to court

Reiterating her call to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson to stop the politics of destruction, the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Thursday hoped that Khaleda would surrender to the court showing respect to the law of the land as a warrant has been issued for her arrest.
‘I hope she (Khaleda) would abide by the law and the court. A warrant has been issued for her (Khaleda) arrest and she would surrender before the court as a gentleman does usually. If she does not, then the country’s people will not spare her,’ she said.
The prime minister was speaking at a function after distributing cheques of financial assistance to burn victims and their family members as well as the owners of different vehicles burned during hartal and blockade enforced by the BNP-led 20-party alliance.
She handed the cheques of financial assistance of Tk 1,57,08,000 to some 199 vehicle owners of 270 damaged vehicles during the hartal and blockade programmes.
Hasina also handed over family savings certificates of Tk 10 lakh each to some 33 burn victims and family members of four deceased burn victims worth Tk 3,85,00,000. Besides, the blind mother of a burn victim, Selina Begum, received a family savings certificate of TK five lakh from the prime minister. Besides, the PMO would also provide her Tk 5,000 per month as long as she remains alive.
Alleging that Khaleda Zia does not abide by the law at all as she did not appear before the court on 67 occasions, Hasina said whenever she appeared before the court she had been there with her cadres with sticks in their hands and they once attacked a ruling party MP and burned his vehicle. ‘She (Khaleda) wants to push Bangladesh towards destruction which is very unfortunate.’
Hasina also urged people to pray for her so that the government could free them from the situation created by the BNP-Jamaat nexus. ‘Arson and vandalism are not acceptable, and I will urge the people of the country to resist these destructive acts together and help nab those committing crimes and hurling bombs as the power of people is the biggest power,’ she added.
Continuing her scathing attack on Khaleda, Hasina said the BNP chief’ s only effort is to devastate the common people as she always tries to push them on the streets.
She said it is an encouraging sign that the common people were now more aware and giving mass beating to those hurling petrol bombs and burning vehicles, and handed them over to police. ‘This is how people will have to come up and put up a resistance.’
The prime minister said when the people of Bangladesh was moving forward and are vying for a better life, it was not acceptable that the BNP-Jamaat clique would unleash destructive acts and violence. ‘We want Bangladesh to march forward as we’re trying to make the independence fruitful.’
She said when the whole of the world is recognising the development of Bangladesh, then the BNP-Jamaat were unleashing arson, anarchy and destructive acts as they did before the January-5 polls in 2014.
Hasina said the BNP chief has been staying in her office while son in London, and they have been issuing orders and their cadres implementing those as if unleashing destruction and burning people is their only jobs.
‘…They (BNP and its allies) will be vanished at the curse of the affected people, and legal steps whatever necessary would surely be taken by the state and the government,’ Hasina added.
Citing the agony and sufferings of the burn victims as well as their family members and the affected vehicle owners, she said it would not be possible to compensate fully the victims, but her government has been trying its best.
The prime minister said she does politics only for the country’s people, giving them a better life and making them financially solvent, but it is not destroying and burning people to death.
She also sharply criticised the BNP-Jamaat for enforcing hartals alongside blockade from the very first day of the SSC examination leaving the academic life of some 15 Lakh examinees into deep uncertainty.
Shipping minister Shajahan Khan, state minister for LGRD Moshiur Rahman Ranga, IGP AKM Shahidul Haque, PMO secretary Suraiya Begum, PM’s press secretary AKM Shameem Chowdhuri and secretary general of Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Samity Khandaker Enayetullah were, among others, present.