DHAKA, July 22, 2024 (BSS) - Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today attributed the nationwide mayhem over the students’ quota movement as she held a meeting with the country’s top business leaders while offered her all out government support to normalise the businesses.

   “Jamaat-Shibir carried out the destructive activities across the country while BNP extended them the support from behind,” she told the meeting after several business leaders spoke blasting the chaos and assured their support for the government.

   The premier held the meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) when she said the perpetrators of the terrorist acts used the students as shield to pursue their plan to dislodge the government.

   The premier’s private industries and investment adviser Salman F Rahman and State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Mohammad Ali Arafat also spoke.

   She said the government as well as the protestors went to the country’s apex court to settle the issue while she also assured the students they would get the justice there when the general students halted their street campaign but the violence erupted as the terrorists intruded in the scene.

  “The students are very sensitive to us. We had to make sure that they are not hurt. We tried our best to ensure calm mobilizing police forces,” the premier said. 

   But, she said, when the arson attack started, agitating students themselves said they were not involved in the misdeeds and condemned the mayhem and while the violence continued the army was called out eventually and enforce curfew to save the people life and property.

    Sheikh Hasina said the curfew was ordered after the agitating students confirmed that they were not behind the destructive activities across the country rather to pursue peaceful movement to reform the quota in the government jobs logically.

   She said the army enrolment was never intended to confront the students or their movement as “I did the student politics myself”.
    
 
   The premier revealed that the Shibir activists mobilized the terrorists from different parts of the country in the capital in particular to carry out the violence destroying most important government installations and infrastructures alongside the atrocities as they could not like development works.

   Sheikh Hasina thanked the businessmen as they stood against the atrocities and extended their wholehearted support to the government measures to bring normalcy to the country and take prompt action against those involved in the destruction. 

   “I thank you as you supported us for which we could take prompt and appropriate measures against the Shibir-Jamaat and BNP. They are terrorists and anarchists. Your support will help us improving the situation,” she said hinting tougher actions awaited the miscreants.

   The premier added: “We will do whatever required for doing your businesses properly”.

   The businessmen univocally supported the Prime Minister and assured her to stay beside her, acknowledging her constant support to their demands saying if she survives, they would survive as well.

   Eight businessmen spoke on the occasion and near identical tone extended their support to the government and the premier while they also sought to reopen their factories and business establishments.

   They also demanded the miscreants to be exposed to justice while the premier said “this time, none of them could escape the justice easily”.

   The premier, however, asked them to reopen their businesses and factories considering their own capacities but cautioned them to take the decision in their own risk.

   Sheikh Hasina also cautioned the businessmen that the anarchists were continuously carrying out propaganda at home and abroad to tarnish the country’s image urging them to raise their voice against the misdeed “if you want to save your business”.
 
   “Your business will be ruined if the country’s image is tarnished,” she opined.

   At the onset of the meeting after Salman Rahman’s welcome address a seven-minute visual documentary was shown describing the damages and torching of the installations like the central data centre, BTV, Setu Bhaban, toll plazas of the Elevated Expressway and Hannif Flyover, BTCL’s underground cable lines and hundreds of government and private vehicles.

   The businessmen who spoke were: FBCCI President Mahbubul Alam, BGMEA President SM Mannan Kochi, BAB President Nazrul Islam Majumdar, Shop Owners’s Association President Helal Uddin, BKMEA Executive President Mohammad Hatem, Leather Goods and Footwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association of Bangladesh Syed Nasim Manzoor, Pran-RFL Chairman Ahsan Khan Chowdhury, Basundhara Group Chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan.