Hasina asks Bangladeshis to help her take the nation forward

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has asked everyone to work together to make Bangladesh a better place to live for its people.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 25 March 2015, 03:40 PM
Updated : 25 March 2015, 03:40 PM

“We do not want to be despised or seek anyone’s favour because of the misdeed of someone or any group,” she said at the Independence Award ceremony on Wednesday, taking a dig at the BNP-led alliance.

Hasina said her government was running the country in a responsible manner. “Our goal is to establish ourselves as a self-sufficient nation and earn economic stability.”

“(So that) People will not have to pay the price for someone’s political mistake,” she said reiterating her stance about the BNP’s decision to stay away from the last parliamentary election.

“We have been very patient. We are slowly tackling the situation. Torture and oppression of the people are not desirable.

“Not destruction, we want development. Not militancy, we want peace,” the prime minister said.

More than one hundred people have died, mostly in fire bombings since BNP’s countrywide agitation for a snap poll began on Jan 5.

The programme was organised by the Cabinet Division in Dhaka.

This year the government conferred Independence Award on late finance minister Shah AMS Kibria, actor-director Abdur Razzak, Professor Emeritus Anisuzzaman, NAP chairman Professor Mozaffar Ahmed, Late Commandant Manik Chowdhury, Freedom Fighter Mamun Mahmud, Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute’s former director general Mohammad Hossain Mandal and late journalist Santosh Gupta.

Seeking everyone’s cooperation to develop the country, Hasina pointed out that many countries, which were liberated at the same time as Bangladesh, “have progressed a lot”.

“We have to move forward.”

Professor Anisuzzaman, speaking on behalf of the awardees, said, “Although the award has been tainted in the past by giving it to anti-liberation people, it is still the highest honour. This is the biggest achievement in anyone’s life.”

Hasina said, “I agree with my teacher Anisuzzaman Sir. People who did not want independence, those who did not believe in it, those who sided with the occupation force and tortured people, they were given this honour.”

She also criticised the ‘distortion of history’ after the assassination of Bangladesh’s founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975.

“There are many who are in their 50s but do not know the correct history.”