Dhaka: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday said the joint force, comprising members of the police, Rab and BGB, will continue their drive until the last terrorist of the country, engaged in destructive acts since January, is caught.

‘The joint drive will continue to resist subversive activities of the militants and terrorists so that they cannot reassemble and prepare to do so again,’ she said.

The prime minister was speaking at a videoconferencing with the district development committees of Manikganj and Sunamganj at the Cabinet Division conference room. Cabinet secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan conducted the videoconferencing.

She said every person of the country needs to remain alert so that no subversive and militant activity could take place in the country in the future.

‘The police, Rab and BGB have to remain alert all the time in every place of the country. If any subversive activity happens in any place of the country, the joint force will conduct drives right away,’ the PM said.

Hasina said the government has to ensure all-out security for the people of the country. ‘So, we have to remain alert and vigil and ready to protect them,’ she said.

The prime minister said this joint operation will continue until this sacred land of Bangladesh is freed from militants and terrorists. ‘We must work together to that direction,’ she added.

Hasina criticised BNP chief Khaleda Zia for her destructive activities since 5 January taking Jamaat with her side. ‘I don’t know what the BNP chief had wanted, she kept herself confined to her Gulshan office and supplied petrol bombs and cocktails,’ she said.

Hasina said Khaleda Zia will be treated as a 'hated person' for her destructive politics.

Affirming that a balanced development of the country is her government’s prime target, the Prime Minister said their aim is to make all the districts self-reliant and asked the authorities concerned to be serious to smoothly and quickly complete the ongoing development programmes.

Recalling the destructive activities of the BNP-Jamaat alliance since January, Hasina said these destructive activities could have slowed down the development programmes of the government. ‘But those programmes didn’t stop,’ she said.

Stressing the importance of preserving names of the martyrs who sacrificed their lives during the Liberation War, she said their names and the mass graves should be preserved for the knowledge of the country’s future generation.

‘The future generation must know the country’s real history and for that we have to preserve our history properly,’ she said.