Photo : Collected
An organisation of Liberation War veterans has called a rally in Dhaka said Wednesday (17 July), against “insult to the freedom fighters during student protests against government job quotas.
The freedom fighters will also protest against “violence, anarchy, an evil attempt to topple the government and insult to the freedom fighters in the name of the student movement” in the rally at Baitul Mukarram National Mosque’s South Gate at 3pm on Thursday.
Former minister Shahjahan Khan, convenor of the Freedom Fighter Workers, Employees, Professionals Coordination Council, announced the programme at a press conference at the National Press Club in the capital on Wednesday.
He said the rally would aim to resist a hit to the fundamental spirit of the Liberation War and violence by uniting the pro-independence people.
Shahjahan said three generations of war criminals’ descendants are banned from jobs in Europe and Vietnam, but in Bangladesh, students brought daily life to a standstill in the name of reforming the quota system.
He said the Appellate Division’s status quo has temporarily made ineffective a High Court verdict reinstating quotas in government jobs. “Continuing the student protest is not reasonable now. The evil force against independence and the spirit of the Liberation War has taken control of the student movement.”
Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque said the protesters shouted slogans distorting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s remarks against Razakar, the force that collaborated with the Pakistani army during the war. “The protesters have shown their true colours.”
He said it is everyone’s right to raise a demand and launch a movement for that in an independent country, but the anti-independence Chhatra Dal and Chhatra Shibir ransacked the Dhaka University halls.
“They needed bodies. This is why they launched attacked in a suicidal way. The government doesn't want anyone dead while the BNP and the Jammat have taken over the movement and gathered at Shapla Chattar.
“The movement’s control is not at the students’ hands. Their [BNP and Jamaat’s] master, who sent the Seventh Fleet, is controlling the movement now,” Mozammel said, blaming the US for instigating the violence by using the BNP and the Jamaat.
Messenger/Sourov
