Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today said the past BNP government planted the “poisonous tree of corruption” and Bangladesh is now bearing its brunt.

“The meaning of power to the BNP is making money through graft and the country is now paying the price of the poisonous tree (of corruption) which they planted during their five-year misrule,” she said.

While presiding over a virtual discussion, Sheikh Hasina, also the Awami League president, said her government is unearthing their (BNP) corruption one after another and arresting those involved in it.

The premier accused again the BNP-Jamaat alliance of perpetrating the barbaric grenade attack on an Awami League rally in 2004, saying that killings are the habit of the BNP.

“(Actually) the habit of the BNP is killings … they don’t believe (in the country’s) independence and the spirit of the liberation war,” she said.

Bangladesh Awami League (AL) arranged the virtual discussion at its central office at Bangabandhu Avenue here this morning marking the 16th anniversary of the gruesome grenade attack on an AL anti-terrorism rally in the capital on August 21, 2004.

The prime minister joined the discussion through a videoconference from her official Ganabhaban residence.

AL General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader delivered the introductory speech at the discussion, while party’s Publicity and Publication Secretary Dr Abdus Sobhan Golap moderated it.

Other central leaders of the party were present on the dais at the party office.

At the outset of the meeting, a minute’s silence was observed as a mark of profound respect to the memory of the martyrs of the August 21 grenade attack and the martyrs of the August 15 carnage.

Twenty-four people including the then Women Affairs Secretary of Awami League and wife of late President Zillur Rahman were killed and over 500 others injured and many of them became crippled for life in the August 21
attack.

By the grace of the Almighty, the then opposition leader and incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and other front ranking AL leaders narrowly escaped the carnage.BSS