Describing the recent "insolent" remarks of Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia on the constitution, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on July 17 urged the countrymen to raise their voice against such remarks on the sacred document.
"The audacious remarks of throwing away the present amended constitution is very much tantamount to sedition. How could she make the remarks taking all the facilities as a cabinet minister under the constitution?" she questioned.
Hasina, also the President of ruling Awami League, said this at a meeting with the leaders of Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) at her office.
The PM said it cannot be desirable that a former prime minister of a country and a president of a party can utter such words against the constitution which "we have earned after sacrificing 30 lakh people and at the cost of modesty of over two lakh women in 1971".
Terming the 15th amendment as a "safeguard" of the constitution and democracy as well, she said the leader of the opposition could not like it as "we have ensured through the amendment that none could be allowed to grab state power through unconstitutional means".
Sheikh Hasina said her government after getting overwhelming victory in the last general election had got a chance to restore the spirit of the country's War of Liberation after 35 years of brutal assassination of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
She said exercising religious rituals by all religious communities independently has been ensured in the amended constitution. She said the amendment has been brought retaining "Bismillah-Hir-Rahmanir Rahim" and state religion in the preamble of the constitution.
She said the leader of the opposition could not accept it as her husband Ziaur Rahman had violated the constitution and grabbed the state power. "It is not unusual that as wife of Ziaur Rahman, Khaleda Zia will express her desire to throw away the constitution," she added.
Criticising Khaleda Zia for her remarks, Hasina said those who made the "indecorous and indecent" remarks on constitution were never with the winners of the country's great War of Liberation rather they were with the defeated forces.
She said it was Ziaur Rahman who mutilated the constitution by bayonet, and promulgating military ordinance after grabbing the state power have patronised the anti-liberation forces.
"He (Zia) has totally destroyed the spirit and values of the Liberation War and suspended the trail process of the killers of Bangabandhu by promulgating military ordinance and later it was legalised through the 5th amendment to the constitution," she added.
The premier said Ziaur Rahman later contested the presidential polls violating the army act which was a total violation of the constitution.
Hasina said Ziaur Ragman awarded the killers of Bangabandhu by appointing them in different Bangladesh missions abroad. "Similarly, Khaleda Zia brought killers Rashid and Huda in the Jatiya Sangsad through the election without voters on February 15, 1996," she added.
The PM said BNP has been trying to destabilise the country through creating anarchy in a bid to protect the war criminals, grenade attackers, corrupt and money smugglers. She called upon all to remain cautious against the conspiracy of the opposition BNP.
Giving a salient feature of the country's contemporary politics from the birth of BNP, Sheikh Hasina said it was BNP that always thought about grabbing state power through unconstitutional means instead of voting.
Information Minister Abul Kalam Azad, BFUJ President Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, Secretary General Abdul Jalil Bhuiyan and leaders of BFUJ affiliated unions also spoke on the occasion.
Principal secretary to the PM M A Karim and press secretary Abul Kalam Azad, former president of BFUJ Manjurul Ahsan Bulbul, former secretary general Altaf Mahmood and treasurer Ataur Rahman, among others, were present.
Source : The Daily Star
