PM hopes Khaleda will call off deadly agitations

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has laid the blame squarely on Khaleda Zia for all the violence during the blockade and hoped the BNP chief will call off deadly agitations.

“I wish that Allah will give her (Khaleda) good sense… so she will stop the politics of burning people to death,” Hasina said on Saturday afternoon.

He made the remark while inaugurating two new projects and laying the foundation of another in Gopalganj through videoconferencing from the Ganabhaban.

“She is taking away the children from the mothers, crippling so many people… and those who have been burnt won’t be able to work anymore,” the prime minister said.

At least 35 people have died from severe burns sustained from arson attacks across Bangladesh amid the nationwide transport blockade enforced by the BNP and its allies to push the government meet their demand for a snap election under a nonpartisan administration.

Mentioning the people’s suffering during the blockade, the prime minister said, “This needs to stop.”

She also questioned the goal of the BNP movement.

During the videoconference, Hasina also spoke of the developments in different sectors made by her government in the past six years. But she also said ‘sabotages’ were carried out to ‘hinder the progress’.

She said that it was a ‘very sad thing’ that the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami were burning people to death despite having no genuine issue to agitate over

“We haven’t seen any movement like this. We’ve led many movements but didn’t see politics where innocents are being burned to death. Its very unfortunate.”

Awami League President Hasina claimed that her party faced repression many times but never ‘attacked’ the people.