Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina wonders whether BNP chief Khaleda Zia, having lost her son, is now able to relate to the pain of the people who have lost their loved ones to the blockade violence.
She made the remarks in Parliament responding to a supplementary question from Treasury Bench member Tajul Islam on Wednesday.
“I will say that she is grieving for her late son. I understand that she had been put to sleep with an injection as she could not bear the pain caused by the death of her ailing son.”
“Can’t she (Khaleda) now feel the pain a mother suffers when her healthy son is burned to death? Won’t she still understand this and refrain from such brutal acts?” Hasina asked.
She at the time also spoke of the violence convulsing Bangladesh since Jan 5 when the BNP chief called the nationwide nonstop transport blockade.
“Unfortunately, some people blame us when Khaleda Zia is responsible for the misdeeds. They are killing our people, why blame us?”
Hasina said her government had been working with the people for development after the last year’s general election.
“But a blockade was called abruptly on this Jan 5. Her (Khaleda) blockade only means burning people alive and creating panic.”
“People are furious. No such attempt was made in the past to destroy a country in this way. They (BNP and its allies) are neither in nor outside Parliament now because of her wrong decision,” said Awami League president.
At one point, the prime minister asked the MPs not to refer to the BNP as the ‘opposition’.
“An MP has mentioned them (BNP) as the opposition only a little earlier. Be careful in future.
“There is parliamentary democracy here. Only the party that sits as the opposition party in Parliament can be called the opposition in parliamentary democracy.”
And the BNP was neither in the government or the opposition, they are only leading an alliance of political parties, said the Leader of the House.
Hasina alleged that the BNP was a political party once, but had become a ‘party of terrorists’.
The prime minister also spoke about how she had to come back from the gates of Khaleda’s Gulshan office after being denied entry on the night of Jan 24.
Hasina had gone to visit her arch political rival after the BNP chief’s youngest son Arafat Rahman Coco died in Malaysia.
“A mother just lost her son. I rushed to see her. But I couldn’t as the gate was locked. My car couldn’t get in.
“I didn’t care about security and tried to enter through the small gate. But that was locked too, meaning I was not allowed to go in,” said the prime minister.
She doubted anything of this nature had happened in Bangladesh before.
‘No more killings’
Hasina on Wednesday again urged Khaleda to “stop unleashing terror and killing people”.
Addressing the BNP chairperson, she said, “Even after the way I was insulted, I will say that she has lost a son. She should now understand what kind of pain one feels after losing a son.”
“I hope she won’t unleash her terrorists in future and refrain from killing people.”
133 burnt, 26 killed
The prime minister, answering a star-marked question, told Parliament that until Jan 26 as many as 26 people across the country were killed and 133 more burnt in arson attacks carried out by ‘terrorists of the BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami combine’ since the blockade started.
As many as 382 buses and trucks were torched, and sabotages derailed two trains and damaged three engines while 12 other acts of sabotage took place in the railway, she added.
Hasina said an executive magistrate was injured in violence and 85 attacks were made on police officials.
Source: Bd news24