BNP chief Khaleda Zia should be charged with sedition, Finance Minister AMA Muhith said yesterday, terming the BNP alliance’s country-wide transport blockade and hartals anti-state.
“Burning and killing people during the blockade and shut downs are beyond the pale of politics. This movement is anti-people and against the country – it is against the national and popular interest,” the finance minister said at a seminar at Dhaka University.
Journey, an education forum, organised the seminar on the “Degradation of the Education System in Recent Violence,” at Dhaka University’s Nabab Nawab Ali Chowdhury Senate Building.
“Khaleda Zia has proven herself to be injudicious by not participating in the 10th parliamentary elections. Violence and burning cannot correct her mistakes. She should step down from politics,” Muhith said.
At the seminar, the Prime Minister’s Political Affairs Adviser HT Imam said it is not possible to hold talks with terrorist groups.
“First, the BNP has to accept responsibility for the violence and killings, and then dialogue will be arranged on the basis of international efforts,” he said.
University Grants Commission Chairman Professor AK Azad Chowdhury said students’ intellectual progress was being inhibited by the violence.
“This is an attempt to annihilate progressive-minded people and the inspiration of the Liberation War,” he said.
Referring to Nagorik Samaj, a committee of civil society members who are calling for dialogue, National University Professor Harun Or Rashid said: “They have their own political identities, amd that is why they are emphasising dialogue and forgetting about the murder of innocents with petrol bombs.”
Former Dhaka University Central Students’ Union vice-president Mahfuza Khanom said: “Bangladesh has experienced several movements before, but it has not seen such an anti-people movement before.”
She criticised Nagorik Samaj, labelling them supporters of violence.
Among others, Minister for Primary and Mass Education Mostafizur Rahman, former DU vice-chancellor Professor SMA Faiz, and Secretary of Education Ministry Nazrul Islam Khan spoke at the seminar.