Repetition of 2001 election won't happen in 2018: Quader

DHAKA, June 8, 2017 (BSS) - Awami General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader yesterday said the repetition of 2001 general election would not happen in 2018.

"BNP leaders think that the repetition of 2001 would happen in the upcoming general election of 2018. If they think so they are living in fool of paradise," he told a meeting at Engineers Institution here.

Awami League Dhaka South and North units arranged the programme marking the historic Six-Point Demand Day with AL South unit President Abul Hasnat was in the chair.

AL Presidium Member and Agriculture Minister Begum Matia Chowdhury, Joint General Secretaries Mahbub Ul Alam Hanif and Dr Dipu Moni, Organizing Secretaries Ahmed Hossain and Enamul Haque Shamim, Office Secretary Dr Abdus Sobhan, AL City South General Secretary Sadeq Khan and North General Secretary Shahe Alam Murad, among others, spoke.

On this day in 1966, Bangabandhu launched a massive movement against the misrule of the Pakistanis on the basis of the Six- Point Demand, the Magna Carta of the Bangalees demanding autonomy for the then East Pakistan.

The Awami League (AL) under the charismatic leadership of Bangabandhu called for a day-long hartal on June 7, 1966 throughout East Pakistan pressing the demand for autonomy to end the exploitation, deprivation, subjugation and tyranny of the then central government of Pakistan on the people here.

Ten people, including labour leader Manu Mian, Shafique and Shamsul Haque, were killed as the police and paramilitary East Pakistan Rifles (EPR) opened fire on the demonstrators on the day in Dhaka, Tongi and Narayanganj during the hartal.

The Pakistani atrocities intensified the movement for provincial autonomy turning it into the historic mass upsurge in 1969 that subsequently caused the downfall of the reign of Field Marshal Ayub Khan.