UNB, Dhaka :
Renewing her allegation that the BNP-Jamaat clique is behind the recent killings in Bangladesh, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday said the government will do whatever is needed to stop the killings and it is just a matter of time. “We’ll do whatever is needed to stop the secret killings…if the government can rein in the broad daylight killings by BNP-Jamaat during the first part of the last year, we can face these killings as well Inshallah…it’s just a matter of time,” she said. The Prime Minister said this in her introductory speech at a meeting of Awami League Central Working Committee at her official residence Ganobhaban.
Terming the killings as part of a plot, Sheikh Hasina urged the people of the country to come up to resist the terrorists and militants as they did in 2015.
“The culprits are doing secret killings just to undermine the country and destroy its image,” she said.
The Prime Minister said the government will track each and every person behind these secret killings and put them on trial. “Where will they go, we definitely dig them out,” she asserted. Sheikh Hasina said, no one will be spared. “Bangladesh is a small land, but it has got a huge number of people. The people of this country know each other; it’s not a tough job to find out the culprits…they must face the punishment,” she said.
Hasina, also the Awami League chief, came down heavily on a section of people who are making hue and cry after every killing saying the government has failed. “Their voice was not that much strong while the BNP-Jamaat clique was burning hundreds of people in the name of a movement,” she recalled.
The Prime Minister suggested finding out the masterminds of these killings, their financiers and instigators, and the section of people who are seeing failure of the government after every killing.
Urging the people of the country to resist these terrorists and militants with united efforts, the Prime Minister made it clear that the government as well as the law enforcement agencies would provide all-out help to them.
Responding to BNP chief Khaleda Zia’s allegation that the Awami League is involved in these killings, Sheikh Hasina said this is the habit of the BNP chief to kill people. “And I myself had faced the attempts of killing several times,” she said. Hasina further alleged that BNP always patronises killing. “It’s not our passion and profession, they are the sponsors of all the killings taken place in Bangladesh.”
Reiterating that Islam is the religion of peace and it never allows killing anyone as the Almighty Allah is the only authority for any judgement. “But these people have taken over the charge on their own shoulder and this how they’re violating the values of the religion. And Islam is suffering a lot for the misdeeds of a handful of people.” She also mentioned that Bangladesh is a place of religious harmony where the people of all religions are performing their rituals without any hindrance. Describing various development activities of the government in the last seven years, the Prime Minister said when the government put the country on the track oo development and light, the BNP-Jamaat nexus wants to block the road of development.
“There will be no mercy to those who want to stop the wheel of development. We’ll surely take actions against them, there’ll be no room for terrorism and militancy in Bangladesh,” Hasina said. She warned the people who are involved in the secret killings also have their own families, and they are putting their own families in danger.
The Prime Minister urged the guardians of these families to bring back their sons from the path of militancy, terrorism and killings to the right path.
At the beginning of the meeting, the central leaders of the ruling party presented a bouquet to the party chief marking the eighth anniversary of release of Sheikh Hasina from jail.
On this day in 2008, Sheikh Hasina was released from the special sub-jail set up on the premises of the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban after remaining captive there for nearly 11 months.
The Awami League president was arrested from her Sudha Sadan residence at Dhanmondi on July 16, 2007 during the military-backed caretaker government, which assumed power in the political changeover of 1/11 in 2007. Conceding to the people’s spontaneous and repeated demands and pressure from different quarters, the caretaker government was compelled to release Sheikh Hasina from jail.
