Reiterating her government’s firm stance against militant activities, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged all, including the country’s conscious citizens, to come up to protect the country and its people from militants.
“We do not want destruction, but development; we do not want militant acts, but peace…We want Bangladesh to become a peaceful nation in the world and continue to move ahead as a peaceful country in South Asia and that is our goal,” she said.
Hasina further said: “It is never acceptable that Bangladesh is affected or its image is tarnished or the country is maligned due to a handful of people or a vested quarter or for a party. I seek support from all to free the country and the nation from such militant acts.”
The prime minister made the statement while addressing a function after distributing the Independence Awards 2015 among seven eminent personalities at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium in the capital yesterday morning.
Those who received the awards for their outstanding contributions this year are Commandant Manik Chowdhury (posthumously), Mamun Mahmud (posthumously), former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria (posthumously), Prof Mozaffar Ahmed, Prof Anisuzzaman, renowned film actor Abdur Razzak for culture, agricultural researcher and former director general of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute Dr Mohammad Hossain Mandol and renowned journalist Santosh Gupta (posthumously).
Each awardee receives a gold medal, a certificate of honour, and a sum of cash, which was originally Tk20,000 but was later increased to Tk100,000 in 2004.
The PM noted that Bangladesh had been lagging behind time and again in the past for various reasons although many countries in the world have witnessed rapid marked progress and development after gaining independence.
“We do not want to fall behind anymore. I seek cooperation of all so that we can continue our march forward and thus can make Bangladesh developed and prosperous further,” she added.
Sheikh Hasina alleged that when her government was running the country successfully after assuming office for the second successive time through the January-5 polls, the BNP-Jamaat started unleashing the politics of destruction and arson, and burning people to death.
She questioned why the BNP-Jamaat was burning people to death through hurling petrol bombs making the air heavy with the bad smell of the burnt people pushing the families of the burn victims into untold sufferings.
“Why such a situation should be created? Why should people pay for one’s wrong politics, they shouldn’t pay rather the leadership and the party concerned will have to pay then price for that. But, here we’ve seen ill-efforts are there to deter our advancement through unleashing militant acts and killing people…this is unfortunate,” she added.
