Ruling Awami League General Secretary and Public Administration Minister Syed Ashraful Islam yesterday fired a salvo against party’s alliance partner Jatiya Samajtanrik Dal (JSD) as he criticised the party decision to incorporate a JSD leader in the cabinet.
Terming JSD leaders as hypocrites, the AL heavyweight also observed that though they had conspired during the post-independence era to set the stage for the killing of Bangabandhu in 1975, now, when AL comes to power, they become sycophants. Ashraf said this while speaking at the closing ceremony of a Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) extended meeting at the Dhaka University Teacher Student Centre. Referring to JSD leader and Information
Minister Hasanul Haq Inu, the ruling party heavyweight said, “A JSD man has been given berth in the cabinet. When a wrong decision is made, the decision-maker has to pay throughout his life.”
Recalling the memory of such an extended meeting of the BCL in 1972, Ashraf pointed out that the JSD was created in that meeting and started to create immense disturbance for the post –liberation government headed by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
“The party (JSD) had laid the platform for the murder of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,” Ashraf said, recalling the political disturbance that was followed by the brutal killing of Bangabandhu on August 15, 1975. Ashraf‘s father, Syed Nazrul Islam, served as the president of the interim government formed to steer the liberation war,  and was killed inside Dhaka Central Jail along with three other top AL leaders on November 3, 1975.
“We became the victims of the conspiracy of JSD that tore apart the country in the name of ‘scientific socialism’. And the leaders who introduced this ‘scientific socialism’, were totally hypocrites,” he said, mentioning that the leaders of this party have now turned into sycophants The AL secretary general said, soon after its birth, after the independence, JSD started to thwart Bangabandhu’s nation-building efforts.
Ashraf also alleged that in the name of scientific socialism, JSD separated from the Awami League’s student wing Chattra League and steered the spirit of the liberation war in a wrong direction.
“JSD had also tried to break the country into many parts while Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to Bangladesh. They also spread controversy about the country’s liberation war,” he alleged.
“If JSD had not set up the stage for the murder of the father of the nation, then we would see a different Bangladesh by now,” Ashraf said and advised Chattra League leaders and activists to avoid such foolhardy people (JSD) by knowing the true history.
Presided over by BCL President Saifur Rahaman Sohag, the programme was attended, among others, by AL Organising Secretary Jahangir Kabir Nanak, former BCL President Liakat Shikder and other leaders and activists of Chattra League.