Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged all, including parents, teachers and government officials, to remain vigilant about the movements of their children to prevent them from getting derailedm, reports UNB. “The people of the country are pious, but not bigots. I simply cannot understand why the children of these pious people who are receiving education from reputed institutions, good schools and colleges, and English medium ones are turning bigots," she said. The Prime Minister was delivering her speech during two separate videoconferencing events with a cross-section of people of 32 districts of Dhaka, Mymensingh, Rajshahi and Rangpur divisions from her official residence Ganobhaban.
Sheikh Hasina said it needs to be dug out how the culprits are misguiding meritorious students. "We don’t want these students to lay down their valuable lives indiscriminately getting derailed from the right path," she said.
She requested the guardians to provide the names and addresses of their derailed or missing children to the government so that appropriate steps could be taken. The Prime Minister also asked the public servants to find out the culprits who are trying to derail the softhearted youths.  “We must get rid of this situation, we’ll have to take our country to the path of development, we must accelerate our socioeconomic development, and I believe we can get rid of this situation,” Hasina said.
Reiterating her resolve not to allow the emergence of militancy in the country, the Prime Minister said the government does not want any recurrence of the incidents happened recently.
“We won’t allow any sort of emergence of militancy in the country, we don’t want Bangladesh to be the land of militancy…we’ll have to take some measurers keeping this view in mid,” she asserted.
She said some unwarranted incidents have been taken place in Bangladesh and it has to be dealt with strongly.
“Bangladesh has been marching ahead so fast under the current government! And this might have triggered a jealousy to some quarters, many don’t like to see such huge development of the country, they want to stop the development. This pace of development, I think, has prompted a conspiracy against our country,” she said.
She also urged the people of the country to stay alert against the design of the evil forces to malign Islam.
Pointing to the two recent militant attacks in Gulshan and Sholakia, the Prime Minister said Islam does support any barbaric act like that. It’s their attempt to malign Islam which always speaks for peace and fraternity, she added.
“Basically, those who are doing this are putting our holy religion Islam in question. Islam is the religion of peace, and they’re putting this religion into question, they’re undermining the religion, they’re maligning the religion before the whole world,” she said.
The Prime Minister said if such militant activities continue to happen then it will cause losses to the country, its economy and trade and businesses.
Laying emphasis on fighting militancy in a coordinated manner, the Prime Minister called for constituting committees to find out militants and missing boys, and foiling any organised threat by militants.
The Prime Minister also urged local people to remain careful about the safety and security of the foreigners working in various development projects.
The Prime Minister mentioned that the government would take steps  what is necessary, while law enforcement agencies will take their own steps.
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid and Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan were, among others, present at the programme.