PM Hasina: Have shown great generosity to Khaleda

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday said they have shown great generosity to Khaleda Zia by allowing her to stay at home and receive treatment in a hospital freely, though Khaleda’s intention was always to hurt the Bangabandhu family.

“What do they expect from us?  We allowed her to stay home and she’s being taken to hospital for treatment freely. Isn’t it enough? Isn’t it a great generosity?” Hasina said.

The prime minister was addressing a discussion virtually from her official residence Ganabhaban.

Bangladesh Awami Jubo League, the youth wing of the ruling Awami League, arranged the discussion at the city’s Krishibid Institute Bangladesh on the occasion of its 49th founding anniversary.

The prime minister said she allowed Khaleda Zia to stay home and receive treatment after postponing her sentence on an executive order on humanitarian grounds. “Now she (Khaleda) is receiving treatment in the country’s most expensive hospital,” she said.

Referring to Khaleda’s birthday, Hasina questioned, “What does it mean by the birthday celebration cutting cake on August 15? It’s just to hurt us who lost parents, brothers and children; isn’t it? Khaleda Zia celebrates August 15 as her birthday. If so, how can they expect more from me?” she said, adding that several birthday dates of Khaleda Zia have been mentioned as her birthdays in different documents.  

Hasina also criticised Khaleda for rewarding and patronizing the killers of the Father of the Nation, making a killer of Bangabandhu as the opposition leader in Parliament in 1996, derogatory remarks during the August-21 grenade attack, not allowing former army chief general Mustafizur Rahman to receive treatment at CMH, and not providing treatment facilities to HM Ershad in jail and Raushon Ershad, and unleashing tortures on AL leaders, including Mohammad Nasim.

“Now, BNP leaders want sympathy and cooperation! But I would like to ask them what Khaleda Zia had behaved (with us). What were the remarks of Khaleda Zia before the August-21 grenade attack?” she said.

At that time Khaleda Zia commented that Sheikh Hasina would never be even the opposition leader, let alone the prime minister, and Awami League would not be able to return to power even in 100 years, Hasina said.

 “The motive behind all their works is to hurt us, not only by rewarding and patronising the killers (of Bangabandhu) but also in other ways,” she said.

Former chairman of Jubo League Jahangir Kabir Nanak and its former general secretary Mirza Azam MP also spoke at the discussion meeting presided over by Jubo League chairman Sheikh Fazle Shams Parash.

Jubo League general secretary Mainul Hossain Khan Nikhil conducted the discussion. 

On November 11, 1972, Sheikh Fazlul Huq Moni (father of Parash) founded the Jubo League following the directive of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.