Prime Minister Tarique Rahman on Tuesday said the ousted autocrat and a faction of the opposition had joined hands in hatching conspiracies to destabilise the country, urging people to remain vigilant against attempts to foment unrest.
“We’ve intelligence reports that the ousted autocrat is providing money from across the border to a particular political party, which is trying to create instability here,” he said while addressing a rally at Haji Muhammad Mohsin Government High School ground in Rajshahi.
The prime minister said intelligence reports pointed to attempts to create disorder in the country. “We say: ‘We will work, we will build, Bangladesh first.’ Those who do not believe in this slogan and principle are now involved in conspiracies,” he said, referring to recent attempts to create labour unrest at several factories in different parts of the country.
Addressing the people, Tarique Rahman said the time had come for the people of Bangladesh to remain vigilant so that no one could create disorder or obstruct the process of improving the economy and changing people’s fortunes.
He said the government had taken initiatives to reopen closed mills and factories to create employment and address unemployment.
In Rajshahi district, he said, the government had brought together businesspeople and entrepreneurs and encouraged them to reopen closed industrial units. Six closed mills and factories had been reopened over the past seven months, he added.
“The core objective is to ensure that our workers do not remain unemployed and can return to work,” said the prime minister,
Announcing that the government had taken initiatives to reopen around 46 more closed factories across the country between January and December next year, he said: “We want our workers to have jobs so they can earn a living and sustain themselves.”
Tarique Rahman also said the government had decided to increase the bed capacity of every upazila health complex from 50 to 100 within the next five years to make healthcare more accessible to ordinary people.
He said separate beds for children and women, along with dialysis facilities for kidney patients, would be introduced at the hospitals so that rural people would not have to travel to distant towns for routine treatment.
At the beginning of the meeting, the prime minister distributed Tk12 crore in incentives among 38,970 sugarcane farmers in the Rajshahi region. He transferred the incentive money to the farmers’ mobile accounts by pressing a button on a computer and handed over cheques to 15 farmers.
Chaired by BNP Acting Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, it was also addressed by Land Minister Mizanur Rahman Minu, Commerce Minister Khandakar Abdul Muktadir, Cultural Affairs Minister Nitai Roy Chowdhury, BNP Standing Committee Member Gayeshwar Chandra Roy and members of parliament from Rajshahi.
Thousands of party leaders and activists from different units of Rajshahi district attended the meeting, along with men and women from the Hindu community.
Earlier, the prime minister arrived at Shah Makhdum Airport in Rajshahi by a military aircraft at 2:50pm and proceeded directly to the meeting venue.
Before coming to Rajshahi, he visited a Durga Puja mandap at Dharmasabha Temple in Rangpur. After his engagements in Rajshahi, he left for Shah Makhdum Airport to travel to Chittagong.
