DHAKA: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, also Awami League president, on Saturday categorically said the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led 20 alliance is a ‘toxin’ for the country.

Hasina was addressing a rally organized by Juba League (JL) on the occasion of its 42nd founding anniversary at Suhrawardy Udyan in the city in the afternoon.

The AL president said Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman began trying the war criminals; Ziaur Rahman freed them and gave them opportunity to do politics.

Now, Khaleda Zia is doing politics with them (war criminals), there is no doubt that the BNP-led 20 party alliance is like a toxin   for the country, she added.

Sheikh Hasina also termed Khandaker Mushtaq Ahmed as the murderer of the August 15, 1971 black night, and late president Zia as a hypocrite.

Putting question, she also told her audience that why Mushtaq would give the charge of army to Zia, if he was not a friend of Mushtaq.

Mushtaq and his friends marked black spot on the fate of the country after the killing in that black night of August 15, she added.

The program began with the recitation of the verses from the Holy Quran at 3:15pm. Around 20,000 JL leaders and activists attended the function. They also took oath there.

Presided over by JL president Omar Faruk, AL joint general secretary, also former JU president, Jahangir Kabir Nanak and Dhaka University Vice Chancellor Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique, among others, spoke.

JL was founded on November 11 in 1972 at the instruction of father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Sheikh Fazlul Huq Moni was JL's founder-chairman and Noore Alam Siddiqui was its first general secretary.

BDST: 1707 HRS, NOV 15, 2014