Information and Broadcasting Minister and Awami League Joint General Secretary Hasan Mahmud said that they have shown in Chittagong that BNP has not left the path of arson and anarchy. Mosharraf Hossain, a miner in Dhaka, said that they want to have a peaceful movement. And examples of their peaceful movement in Chittagong are attacks on police, car vandalism, and arson. The information minister said these things in response to the questions of the journalists after the speech of the chief guest at the unveiling ceremony of the ‘Abdul Ghaffar Chowdhury memorial book edited by the Monayem government in the conference room of the Directorate of Information at the Secretariat on Tuesday afternoon. Hasan Mahmud said, ‘We have been saying again and again that BNP is holding meetings to create unrest in the country. In the name of that rally, they have again started arson, attacking the police and because of that public life security is being disturbed, so in the future, they have to be more careful in their rallies. They have to think and decide what they do when they talk about the rally. Pointing out that BNP’s politics is not people-oriented, but foreign-oriented, the information minister said, “They have adopted the policy of running to foreign diplomats in the dark of night.” However, they understood that there was no benefit from doing all this when recently the US Assistant Secretary of State visited Bangladesh and said that the quality of work of the security forces in Bangladesh has improved and the United States wants to support and train our security forces. It made their head hurt. As a result, now they have started bickering. Refuting the allegation of repression against BNP, the information minister said, ‘The government is not repressing BNP. I will tell BNP to look back to see what they did when they were in power. They killed dozens of people in 2002 in the name of Operation Cleanheart and looted and sealed the office of Awami League’s research institute CRI. Earlier, Hasan Mahmud thanked the editor Monayem Sarkar for preparing the Abdul Ghaffar Chowdhury memorial book. Paying tribute to the late Abdul Ghaffar Chowdhury, the minister said, “Today, February 21 has been anointed as the International Mother Language Day by the United Nations under the leadership of People’s Leader Sheikh Hasina. The initiative taken by our two expatriates, Salam and Rafiq, was sent to the United Nations by Bangabandhu’s daughter Sheikh Hasina as soon as possible on behalf of the state. So, this timeless song of Abdul Ghaffar Chowdhury “Amar Bhai’s blood colored Ekushe Februari” is sung in different languages all over the world. The 416-page ‘Abdul Ghaffar Chowdhury’ memorial book published by the upcoming publication with the support of the Bangladesh Foundation for Development Research contains about 80 articles, interviews, poems, and stories of Ghaffar Chowdhury.
