PM Hasina blames Jamaat for ‘covert killings’, calls for anti-militancy campaign

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said it is clear by now who are behind the recent killings, claiming that Golam Faizullah Fahim, a suspected militant killed in a ‘shootout’ in police custody, was a member of the Islami Chhatra Shibir.

Shibir is the student front of the BNP’s key partner Jamaat-e-Islami.

Fahim, shot dead on Saturday, was caught red-handed during the attempted murder of a Hindu teacher in Madaripur on Wednesday.

Police said he was a member of banned Islamist outfit Hizb-ut Tahrir.

The prime minister, speaking at an Iftar gathering in the National Press Club, said, “We had said we have information on the recent killings. Now it’s clear to you.”

“You see, the man who tried to kill Madaripur lecturer Ripon, is a member of Shibir. So I think there should not be any doubt that these covert killings are well-planned,” she said.

Hasina urged all to take steps to prevent such crimes and uproot militancy and terrorism.

“People stopped those who killed people in public. Now locals of a neighbourhood caught someone who attacked the teacher,” she said.

“We are against terrorism, militancy. We don’t want them to continue,” she added.

She urged journalists to be more vocal against the menace.

Pointing a finger at Jamaat for opposing Bangladesh’s independence during the Liberation War, she said, “The war crimes trial will continue despite death threats.”

The prime minister said the Jamaat has not stopped after “crimes against humanity during the 1971 War and firebombing of buses last year”.

“Even Tulip (her niece Tulip Siddiq, a British MP) received a death threat. She was told in a letter: ‘We have killed your grandfather and now we will kill you and your mother and aunt,” she said.

“This letter has reminded me of a comment by BNP chief (Khaleda Zia). She said she wants a Hasina-free Bangladesh. What does it mean? It means she wants to kill me, too,” the prime minister said.

She also blamed ‘a person’ in London for a plot to abduct and kill her son Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed Joy and the threat to Tulip.

“A black sheep is staying in London. I wonder why the British government has given him a place,” she said.

Khaleda’s son and senior vice-chairman of her BNP party, Tarique Rahman, has been in London, facing charges that include plotting an assassination attempt on Hasina.

“I hope the British government will take proper steps regarding him,” she said.

The prime minister exchanged greeting s with the guests at the Iftar party, organised by the Bangladesh Federal Journalists Union and Dhaka Reporters Unity.

Speaking about journalism, she said there should be a guideline for it.

“But it is not for controlling journalists,” she said.

Referring to a BBC report on Joy, for which the BBC regretted later, Hasina said, “We did not expect it from an internationally renowned media.”

She also said she would request Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu to look into the journalists’ demand for the constitution of the Ninth Wage Board.

Inu, Prime Minister’s Information Affairs Advisor Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, among others, spoke at the programme.