Referring to the killing of people in arson attacks on passenger buses as “mass killing”, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia was involved in the crime.
The prime minister came up with the remarks while talking to reporters after visiting the burn victims at Burn and Plastic Surgery Unit of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH).
The victims suffered burn injuries during the opposition-sponsored recent blockades and hartals.
Issuing a note of strong warning against the opposition leaders and activists, Sheikh Hasina said: “We [government] will get tougher as much as we can, we’ll take actions against these hooligans; we’ll also take action against the instigators.”
Coming down hard on the opposition party for killing people by setting fire, Hasina said: “This is heinous politics, this is terrorist act.”
“Burning such a huge number of people, and killing them in such a manner are simply unimaginable…What kind of act is this? The families of the affected are undergoing untold sufferings…You (Khaleda) live in the AC room and kill people by giving orders, I won’t tolerate such acts,” she warned.
Requesting the media not to take pictures of burning buses or the auto-rickshaws, the PM said: “Please, take the pictures of those who are setting fire to those, and help us arrest the hooligans.”
Urging the opposition leader to refrain from committing such crimes, Hasina said, “Her [Khaleda] allies are now Jamaat-Shibir, who are killing people the way they did in 1971; I strongly denounce this.”
Referring to a request of a burn victim Sumi, the premier expressed her firm resolve to take stern actions against the perpetrators involved in the crime.
Hasina questioned what BNP and Jamaat had gained by burning people to death, staging accidents to kill people through uprooting fishplates of railway tracks, and burning CNG drivers, private vehicles, rickshaw-pullers and passengers.
Of the 51 patients, who were undergoing treatment at the burn unit over the last two weeks, nine patients have died so far. Thirty-seven patients are now undergoing treatment while the rest have been discharged.
During her stay there, the prime minister enquired about the conditions of the patients, and gave Tk 10,000 to each of the victims. The government is bearing the cost of treatment of the patients at the burn unit.
Earlier, the premier arrived at the DMCH around 3:00pm.
She also asked the doctors and the hospital administration to take good care of the patients so that they could recover from their injuries within a short time.
Local lawmaker Dr Mostafa Jalal Mohiuddin, PM’s Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad, Health Secretary MM Niazuddin, burn specialist and founder of the burn unit of the DMCH Dr Samanta Lal Sen, BMA President Dr Iqbal Arsenal, among others, were present.
-With UNB/The Daily Star input
