Bangladesh PM appeals for communal harmony

Referring to oft-repeated attacks on minority communities in Bangladesh, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged the countrymen to resist all evil designs against development, saying peace is the foremost prerequisite for the country to continue the ongoing development.
“You have to remain careful so that no such incidents, which are taking place sporadically in different parts of the country, take place anywhere in the country,” she said during a video conference with people’s representatives, professional leaders and officials of Rajshahi division.
Hasina urged all to put in their best efforts to maintain communal harmony and ensure safety and security of minority communities.
“As a Muslim majority country, it is the responsibility of all of us to take care of the minorities,” she told the conference which focused on nationwide development activities and anti-terror
campaigns.
The prime minister cautioned everyone against a possible fresh spate of violence in the country as “BNP leaders have already given hints and threatened to go for tough movement from November”.
“The country has to remain careful about their conspiracy … everybody has to join hands against their anarchy, arson attacks and vandalism,” she said.
The Prime Minister accused BNP-Jamaat alliance of driving the country to the “path of destruction” and said “they are also responsible for destroying the morality of the youths”.
“They (BNP-Jamaat) will not change their nature,” she said.
The Prime Minister exchanged views with deputy commissioners, other senior officials and local representatives in five district of the division while the conference was projected at 2981 villages, sub-districts of eight districts of the division.
Ministers, parliament members, political and religious leaders, school teachers, farmers, beneficiaries of various benevolent programmes of the government and cross section of people took part in the interaction with the premier from different venues in Rajshahi.
Pointing out the prevailing peaceful law and order in the country Prime Minister Hasina said all have to work together to maintain communal harmony in Rajshahi.
“Bangladesh is a country of communal harmony which should be maintained at any cost for development and brighten the country’s image,” she said.
A quarter, she said, is always out to frustrate the communal harmony but the nation has to remain careful in this regard.
In this context, she requested the imams of mosques to give ‘khutba’ or sermon against militancy and terrorism
to create mass awareness.
At the same time, she urged, all including teachers, guardians, service holders, to keep a strict watch on their children so that they could not be involved in drug addiction, militancy and terrorism.