ZCZC
BSS-51
PM-SPEECH-VICTORY 3-LAST DHAKA
The Prime Minister said the collaborators of the defeated forces brutally killed the Father of the Nation along with most of his family members on August 15, 1975 when he had got busy to rebuild the war-torn country and was working rigorously day-night to improve the lot of country’s people.
“Only a person Mujib departed the earth through the killing of Bangabandhu, rather the emergence of Bangladesh in the world was made questionable through the assassination of the Father of the Nation and invincible progress in cultural, social and economic sectors of Bangali nation was stopped,” she noted.
She said: “An ideology and dream was killed with the murder of Bangabandhu with whom fortunes of millions of hard-working mass people were involved.”
Sheikh Hasina said the Father of the Nation was a genuine Muslim and he used to practice all religious rituals.
Like Bangabandhu, nobody else could understand the mentality-thinking-desire of Bangla’s people, she said, adding: “That is why when he wrote the constitution, the four main principals – Bangali nationalism, secularism, democracy and socialism – of governing the state were adopted reflecting the expectation and wish of people.”
But, the matter of sorrow was that the anti-liberation governments after 1975 took measures to perpetuate their position by demolishing the values attained through the War of Liberation, she said, adding they also tried to stigmatize Awami League and members of Bangabandhu family by distorting history through continuous rumors and propaganda with state sponsorship.
The Prime Minister said what the secular Bangabandhu did for spreading and protecting the Islamic values, the governments camouflaged in the name of Islam did not do that.
“Banning liquor-gambling-horse race through enacting law and establishing Islamic Foundation and Madrasa Board as well as becoming OIC member were done by the Bangabandhu within three years and six months after the independence,” she said.
Sheikh Hasina said Awami League government during 1996-2001 and from 2009 to present attained extraordinary success in country’s socio-economic sectors.
The premier also briefly highlighted her government’s work on the expansion of Islamic education such as establishment of Islami Arabic University, introduction of honors courses at 80 madrasas, recognizing Qawmi Madrasah and its Qawmi degree equivalent to master’s status, construction of good-looking mosque at district and upazila levels, mosque-based libraries across the country under Islamic Foundation, formation of welfare trust for providing assistance to Imam-Muazzin and employment of over thousands of Islamic scholars (Alem- Olamaye Keram).
“What my government has done in spreading Islamic education in the country, no other governments did it in the past,” she added.
BSS/MAK/AHJ/GA/1950 hrs