Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called on youths and children to help the ‘poor and needy’.
Addressing students on the occasion of her slain younger brother Sheikh Russel’s birth anniversary, the prime minister said, “You must help the poor and needy people. Only then will we progress as a nation.”
She said, alongside their studies, students must obey their teachers and parents.
The programme organised by Sheikh Russel Jatiyo Shishu Kishore Parishad was held at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre.
Winners of chess, art and cultural events as well as meritorious students of SSC were awarded prizes for their excellence in the programme.
In her address as the chief guest, the prime minister told the students,” Always remember we have earned our victory, fighting the Liberation War under the leadership of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. We are a victorious nation.”
“A triumphant nation does not need to bow down before anyone. We will not bow our head to anyone but Allah. You all are children of Shonar Bangla.”
Speaking about children’s rights and security, she said, “We want security for every child.”
She emphasised children must get correct information about the War of Independence, adding that history must not be allowed to be distorted.
As she reminisced about her younger brother Russel, the prime minister was overcome by emotion. She said, “He would have been 50 years old now, but the bullets of the killers did not allow him to live.”
On Aug 15, 1975 Russel, along with other members of the family, was assassinated in their Dhanmondi home.
Her voice choking by now, Hasina said, “I had even once thought of taking him with me, but mother and father didn’t allow it. It’s our bad luck,” she said, referring to her and younger sister Sheikh Rehana’s foreign tour before the murders.
“What hurts most is that Russel was brutally killed after being dragged to his father’s body. What was the fault of a young child?” she questioned.
She said the killers wanted to destroy the ideology of freedom fighters and hand over the nation to those powers who were defeated in the liberation war.
Russel, the youngest son of Bangladesh’s founding father, was born on Oct18, 1964. “The day Russell was born, father was busy with election campaign in Chittagong,” she recollected.
He was named after the great philosopher Bertrand Russell by his mother, Fazilatunnessa Mujib.
The prime minister told the children how after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was arrested on May 8, 1966, following his Six-Point declaration, that Russel used to visit him in jail and never wanted to come back without his father.
She also referred to the recent killings of children by Israeli forces in Gaza.
“Nobody protested against it. I always protested whenever I got an opportunity. When I heard about the Palestinian women and children being killed in Gaza, I remembered my mother, my brother and Arju Moni. Though I did not see how brutally they were killed, I could visualise it.”
Source: Bd news24
