Dhaka: There is no political magnanimity in abandoning Khaleda Zia’s fake birthday celebrations on 15 August as the real reason lies elsewhere, says Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. ‘As her younger son Koko was born in August, she (Khaleda) cannot celebrate his birthday since he is dead now. So, she’s not celebrating her birthday on 15 August…this is the reality,’ she said.

The Prime Minister said this while addressing a reminiscence meeting arranged by Bangladesh Awami League at Krishibid Institution, Bangladesh here, marking the National Mourning Day, reports UNB.

Hasina, also the Awami League chief, said if anyone thinks Khaleda is not celebrating her birthday on 15 August to show her political magnanimity that person makes a mistake. ‘Some leaders of her party are trying to establish that, but that’s not correct,’ she said.

Hasina said she came to know yesterday (Monday) that Khaleda would not celebrate her birthday. ‘It’s not her birthday at all, she just does that to hurt us as on this day we mourn as we lost parents, brothers…pain grips us on this day, while another person (Khaleda) celebrates her birthday by cutting cakes.’

The Prime Minister also said some people look overenthusiastic to prove she did not celebrate her birthday out of political magnanimity. ‘But, I know the fact …a mother cannot celebrate her fake birthday in the month in which her dead son was born. What will she do being a mother? More importantly, this is not her real birthday’ Hasina added.

The Awami League chief mentioned that the life sketch that was published when Khaleda became the Prime Minister did not mention 15 August as her birth date. ‘Just to undermine Bangabandhu and hurt us, she (Khaleda) selected this date for celebrating this fake birthday and she gave a signal to the killers of Bangabandhu that she is with the killers as another killer.’

Briefly describing the miserable days after the assassination of Bangabandhu and his family members, Hasina said the national and international forces who had never wanted Bangladesh to emerge an independent nation are behind the conspiracy of this killing. ‘They want to destroy the spirit and ideology of the Liberation War forever.’

After losing all, Hasina said, now it is her desire of her life to materialise the dream of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. ‘My desire is just to serve the nation and its people so that they could get a better life.’

But, Hasina said, in moving ahead, she faced many hurdles like militancy, terrorism and grenade attacks. ‘And there might be more in the future,’ she added.

Chaired by deputy leader of the house and senior presidium member of Awami League Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, the meeting was addressed, among others, by AL advisory council members Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed and Suranjit Sengupta, presidium members Begum Matia Chowdhury, Mohammad Nasim and Engineer Mosharraf Hossain, General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam, eminent writer Syed Shamsul Haque, AL joint secretaries Jahangir Kabir Nanak and Mahbubul Alam Hanif and AL organising secretary AFM Bahauddin Nasim.

Earlier, a one-minute silence was observed as a mark of profound respect to the memories of Bangabndhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and other martyrs of the 15 August carnage, the four national leaders and those who embraced martyrdom in different movements of the country, including the War of Liberation in 1971.