The information minister, Hasanul Haque Inu, has reiterated his call to the BNP chairperson, Khaleda Zia, to sit for dialogue to forge a greater national unity aimed at uprooting militancy.
‘If you agree to sit for dialogue, you have to boycott militancy first otherwise we will not be able to give democracy an institutional shape,’ he said while inaugurating a three-day foundation course for female journalists at the Press Institute of Bangladesh in the city Tuesday.
In this connection, the minister criticised Khaleda for extending her party’s unequivocal support to anti-liberation Jamaat-Shibir elements, Hefajat-e-Islam and militants in carrying out subversive activities.
Inu said democracy in the country had been passing through transitional period when all the thorns in its way had to be removed so that militancy could not stand as a barrier to its way to give democracy an institutional shape.
Rejecting the observations of some people that the present political confrontation was nothing but a ‘battle between the two leaders’, Inu said it was not a confrontation of two leaders rather it was the fight of ideology. It is the fight between pro-liberation and anti-liberation spirits, he added.
The minister said the present government was pledged-bound to give democracy firm footings by pulling up all rubbish through holding trial of the war criminals.
Describing journalism as a noble and challenging profession, he said women had to come forward to take the challenges by acquiring adequate knowledge on the country’s history and culture.
The minister paid tribute to the memory of poet Sufia Kamal, Nur Jahan Begum and Selina Parvin, who were the pioneer of female journalism.
Chaired by PIB director general Dulal Chandra Biswas, information secretary Mortuza Ahmed, president of Women Journalist’s Kendra Nasimun Ara Haq Minu and director of PIB training division Abu Taher Mohammad Hossain, among others, also spoke.
-With New Age input
