Urging the opposition leader to sever her connection with Jamaat-Shibir, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday cautioned Khaleda Zia that otherwise she will also have to face the trial for corruption, killing and nepotism along with the Jamaat-Shibir men.
“Listen to the sound and words of people’s minds, only then you (Khaleda) can make some place…otherwise, you’ll also have to face trial in the soil of Bangladesh for corruption, killings and nepotism along with the Jamaat-Shibir,” she said at a public rally at the Moulvibazar Government School ground in the afternoon.
AL General Secretary and LGRD Minister Syed Ashraful Islam, minister without portfolio Suranjit Sengupta, AL Joint General Secretary Mahbub-ul-Alam Hanif and local MP Syed Mohsin Ali also addressed the rally with Chief Whip Abdus Shahid in the chair.
Hasina also said the people of the country will never forget the oppression carried out by the Jamaat-e-Islami during the War of Liberation and now being unleashed by the Islami Chhatra Shibir activists as well.
In a scathing attack on Khaleda, the premier said the opposition leader “feels heartburn” when the country’s people live in peace. “Her (Khaleda’s) sons had laundered money abroad. The government of Singapore confiscated that laundered money and sent it back to Bangladesh.”
She added: “The corruption scam of her son is now known to the whole world.”
The prime minister said that the opposition leader herself, while being the prime minister of the country, whitened black money giving fine. “As a prime minister, she amassed illegal money and then legalised those giving fine…what else could be more shameful than this?”
Questioning Khaleda’s claim that her sons live an honest life, she asked the Bangladeshi expatriates living in London to look for the sources of money of her son (Tarique Rahman) by which he owned how many houses, restaurants and cars there in London.
“Obviously, the source of that money is corruption and such huge amount of money could not come without corruption,” she said.
On Khaleda’s comments about her sons, Hasina said it is like a ‘thief’s mother screams louder’ adding that it is natural that the opposition leader is trying to hide corruption and theft through `golabazi’ (being more vocal).
“But, this won’t work as it is known to the people of the country how they had looted the people,” she said.
Accusing again the opposition leader for launching movements in the month of December, the month of victory for the nation, in a bid to save the war criminals, the PM said: “You (Khaleda) gave programmes to save the war criminals, but you won’t succeed… Insha-Allah, the trial of the war criminals will surely be held in the soil of Bangladesh,”
She also said that through holding trial of the war criminals, Bangladesh and the Bengali nation will be freed from a stigma and the country will make its place as a dignified nation in the world.
Highlighting various successes and achievements during the tenure of the present government, Hasina said that her government has been upgrading all the upazila health complexes to 50 beds from 31 beds.
The government’s other successes, she said, include reducing the rate of inflation, distributing textbooks free of cost up to secondary level, employing four lakh people in the public sector and 78 lakh in the private sector, increasing the salaries and allowances of government officials and employees, bringing down the prices of essentials, and overall ensured peace and security among the common people.
Urging the local people to re-elect the Awami league-led alliance government in the next general elections, Hasina expressed her firm resolve to build a hunger- and poverty-free ‘Sonar Bangla’ by 2021 imbued with the spirit of the great war of liberation.
Earlier, the Prime Minister inaugurated the newly constructed 250-bed Moulvibazar district hospital, the District Met Office and the Polytechnic Institute in the district town.
She also laid the foundation stone of the buildings of Jatiya Mohila Sangstha, Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court, Muktijoddha Sangsad Bhaban Complex, and the Technical Training Center being implemented by the Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry.
Source: The Daily Star
