Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has urged BNP activists who fought in the country’s Independence War to stand by the ongoing trial of war criminals.
She made this appeal in an event of Muktijuddha Sangsad’s US Chapter at New York’s Grand Hyatt hotel on Wednesday. The PM is currently in the US to attend the UN general assembly meet.
“Unite in favour of the trial of war criminals who had committed crimes against humanity in 1971. Keep the trial above political allegiances. The war criminals would not have spared you (freedom fighters now in the BNP fold) if you had encountered them in 1971,” said Sheikh Hasina.
She said that the BNP had taken to the streets to protect the killers and anti-liberation forces.
“Freedom fighters can never support such an act.”
“You have to be united to protect the sovereignty of the country that you liberated, risking your lives by responding to the call of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.”
In her half-hour meeting with the freedom fighters, the PM urged the expatriate pro-liberation forces to help the grand alliance win the next general election.
The PM was awarded by the Sangsad for raising the monthly allowance for freedom fighters and also their employment age limit.
“The killers of ’71 and their associates are spreading disinformation about the progress achieved under the present government. Vested interests are splurging money to create a controversy about the war crimes tribunal.”
“Freedom fighters, the members of their families, specially the generation that grew up abroad, must be vocal against this propaganda,” said Hasina.
She told the expatriates that Bangladesh had become a ‘development model’, shedding its earlier reputation being a ‘heaven for militancy.’
She also urged freedom fighters living in Bangladesh to help defeat the anti-liberation force in the next general election.
She promised rehabilitation of the poor and destitute if her party was returned to power.
Source: Bd news24
