Awami League's Quader sees plot by 1/11 actors to destroy democracy

Obaidul Quader says there has been a plot to destroy democracy in Bangladesh through events like those leading to army intervention on January 11, 2007.

The Awami League general secretary has also warned the ‘conspirators’ that the government is alert to ‘their conspiracy’.

“The actors of 1/11 are playing an evil game of gaining profits from murky politics when the country is passing a peaceful time,” he told a news briefing at the party chief’s office in Dhaka on Tuesday.

Quader would not take any name but it was clear that he was pointing the finger at the meeting at rights organisation SHUJAN Secretary Badiul Alam Majumdar’s house on Saturday night.

US Ambassador Marcia Bernicat attended the meeting and came under attack by some stick-wielding youths after leaving Badiul’s house, which was also attacked.

“We know what’s happening here and abroad in the dark of the night. You are living in a fool’s paradise if you think that the government doesn’t know anything. We know everything,” Quader said.

“There have been many conspiracies, hundreds of meetings. No-one would have been out of jail had we taken actions, but we have remained patient,” he said.

The road transport and bridges minister reiterated that there were attempts to destabilise Bangladesh through the student protests for road safety measures and justice for road accidents.

“They (conspirators) are trying to cripple Dhaka by bringing their goons from across the country to the capital in a planned manner,” he alleged.

The Awami League leader criticised Gono Forum President Dr Kamal Hossain for his comments that “the government was using goons to muzzle the protests”.

He claimed Arafatul Islam Bappy, an activist of the ruling party’s wing for volunteers, Swechchhasebak League, lost his eyesight to an attack on the Awami League office at Dhanmondi on Saturday.

“Misleading information were being circulated in a planned away when we came under attack,” Quader said.

According to him, the government will respond to the propaganda against it through development work.

He said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would inaugurate work to construct an underpass near the Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment College at Kurmitola, the institution which lost two of its students in a road crash on July 29 that triggered the students’ movement.