Asks univ teachers to sit for BCS test
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina and leaders of Awami League attend a programme in Dhaka on Monday, marking Homecoming Day of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. — BSS photo
The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Monday said that university teachers’ demand for status of a secretary was not justified and she urged them to sit for BCS exams if they wanted to enjoy the status.
At a rally the ruling Awami League organised at Suhrawardy Udyan to mark the Homecoming Day of the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahamn, she branded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party as an ‘illegal’ political party saying that as the apex court had declared military takeover by Ziaur Rahman illegal, all his activities including the formation of the party were also illegal.
She said that Bangladesh Nationalist Party founder Ziaur Rahman should not be called ‘president’ as his regime was declared illegal by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court had declared illegal and unconstitutional the regimes of Khandker Mushtaque Ahmed, Abu Sadaat Mohammad Sayem and Ziaur
Rahman in its judgement on the fifth amendment to the constitution and that of HM Ershad in the verdict on the seventh amendment to the constitution.
Hasina said that after his military takeover, Zia started distorting the history of the war of liberation, which was later followed by his wife, depriving several generations of actual history of the country’s independence.
She said that the defeated force killed Sheikh Mujibur and four top AL leaders when the war-ravaged nation started experiencing progress and taste of the independence under their leadership.
The prime minister alleged that BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia had a link with the BDR mutiny across the country within couple of months of Awami League-led government’s assuming power in 2009.
‘If she [Khaleda] had no link, why she went underground from her cantonment house and why her son phoned her 45 times from London on the night to leave home before the mutiny,’ she said, adding that the BDR mutiny masterminds must be tried someday.
As for the ongoing movement of university teachers and government employees, Hasina said that she found no reason for them to be unhappy after her government hiked salary by 123 per cent.
She said that the university teachers’ demand that they should be given the status of a secretary was not justified.
‘The status of a teacher is above all and it could not be compared to the status of others…I am prime minister but Anisuzzaman [professor emeritus] is my teacher,’ she said.
Hasina said that if teachers wanted the status of a secretary, they should quit the jobs and sit for the exam under Public Service Commission for becoming a secretary and their present retirement age should be lowered to 59 from the existing 65.
She urged the university teachers not to prolong the academic life of students by enforcing any strike.
The prime minister said that a quarter and their leader Khaleda started feeling discomfort when the people of the country were passing days with peace and prosperity under her government.
‘Out of their discomfort they started movement and killed 250 people in arsons to topple the government…The results of the municipal elections proved that the people rejected their movement,’ she said.
Hasina censured Khaleda for making ‘derogatory’ remarks about the figure of martyred of 1971 liberation war.
‘What the Pakistani says, she [Khaleda] just believes it,’ she said.
The prime minister said conspiracies had been hatching since the day of the war crimes trial started but whatever the conspiracies were cooked the trial of war criminals would not be stopped.
As for the recent protests by students and teachers against Metro Rail route through Dhaka University campus, Hasina said the route through the university campus had been chosen for the benefit of students and teachers.
Senior Awami League leaders including Amir Hossain Amu, Matia Chowdhury, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, Mohammad Nasim and Syed Ashraful Islam addressed the rally.
Source: New Age