Jubo League chairman Sheikh Fazle Shams Parash has called the BNP a party cut off from the people. "I will tell them (BNP leaders), there is still time. Stand beside the people. Concentrate on constructive politics. Otherwise the people of this country will not forgive you. You will not find a way to flee," he said.

He was speaking on Thursday (22 June) at the opening of the Jubo League's nationwide tree-planting programme at the Mohanagar Natya Mancha in Gulistan, Dhaka.

Presiding over the event, he said the BNP and Jamaat are entirely cut off from the people and are terrorist parties skilled in killing. He said Jamaat carried out genocide in 1971, that BNP founder Ziaur Rahman played the role of mastermind of the reckless killing of Bangabandhu's family in 1975, and that Ziaur Rahman was behind all the killings of 1978 and 1979. In 2001, he said, the BNP and Jamaat in alliance set out to wipe out the Awami League and killed about 25,000 of its leaders, activists and supporters.

"You should remember the rampage of the BNP-Jamaat alliance government through the grenade attack of 21 August 2004. So there is no room to underestimate their aims and ambitions in the politics of murder and killing. They only know killing, coups and terrorism; they have no capacity to do anything for the people. Now they have become desperate to seize power," he said.

Addressing BNP leaders, he said one of their top leaders is already a convicted fugitive, and another convicted top leader is looking for a way to flee on various pretexts. Today's generation understands this low-grade politics, so the people are not with them, and that is why they have failed completely in every movement so far, he said.

Urging Jubo League leaders and activists to plant trees sincerely, Parash said the programme must be taken very seriously. "Do not plant trees in a token, careless way; the trees also need care. Do not plant them in places that block people's way, so that people are forced to pull them up the next day."

The chief guest was Professor Khandaker Bazlul Haque, member of the Awami League advisory council and chairman of its sub-committee on forest and environment. Deputy Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Habibun Nahar attended as a guest. Jubo League general secretary Md Mainul Hossain Khan Nikhil conducted the event.

Also speaking were Jubo League environment affairs secretary Haris Md Sheikh Sagar, deputy environment affairs secretary Md Samsul Islam Patwary, Dhaka Metropolitan North Jubo League acting president Zakir Hossain Babul, its general secretary Md Ismail Hossain, and Dhaka South acting general secretary H M Rezaul Karim Reza. Jubo League presidium members, joint general secretaries, organising secretaries and other central leaders were present.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.