Staff Correspondent
The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, said Thursday that last week’s troop rebellion at the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters was a ‘grave conspiracy’ against the country’s nascent democracy.
‘It [the rebellion] was a big conspiracy against democracy. It is presumed initially that the rebellion was staged to embarrass and put the democratically elected government in danger,’ the prime minister was quoted by her press secretary to have told a group
of diplomats from the ASEAN nations at her office.
Hasina’s press secretary Abdul Kalam Azad was briefing newsmen after the heads of the mission of the Association of South East Asian Nations in Bangladesh met with the prime minister to mourn the deaths in last week’s rebellion at the BDR headquarters. Seventy-one people, mostly army officers, were killed in the rebellion.
The diplomats expressed sympathies to the bereaved families. The delegation of the ASEAN envoys in Dhaka representing Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, the Philippines, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia of the regional block assured the prime minister of their support to protect democracy, said Azad.
During the meeting, the ASEAN diplomats also assured Hasina that they would also assist Bangladesh in establishing peace and attaining prosperity, said her press secretary.
They also discussed prospects of ASEAN investments in Bangladesh’s energy and tourism sectors, he said.
The envoys who met the prime minister were Nguyen Van That of Vietnam, Chalermpol Thanchitt of Thailand, U Phae Thann Oo of Myanmar, Zenaida Tacorda-Rabago of the Philippines, Haji Abdul Razak bin Haji Mohd Hussaini of Brunei Darussalam, Tan Kok Nam of Singapore, Tri Surya of Indonesia and Hamizan bin Hashim of Malaysia.
Courtesy of www.newagebd.com
