The Awami League President Sheikh Hasina alleged yesterday that the BNP-Jamaat alliance government had been patronising terrorist groups across the country, particularly the ‘fanatic outfit of Bangla Bhai’ in the northern region, after losing ground beneath its feet.

The Leader of the Opposition brought the allegation against the alliance government when Ismail Mridha, father of Yasin Ali, a slain leader of her party’s Baghmara upazila unit, came to meet her along with local AL leaders at her Sudha Sadan residence in the city yesterday.

Terming the orders of the Prime Minister and the State Minister for Home Affairs for the arrest of ‘Bangla Bhai’ as nothing but an eyewash and hoax, Sheikh Hasina said that the anti-state activities of the chief of the fanatic-militant group continued in the country’s northern region with the blessing of the government and particularly two state ministers, who are his ‘godfathers.’

She said the government has been implicating popular leaders and organisers of her party in false cases and killing them using either the armed cadres of Bangla Bhai or its elite force––Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

"None is safe and secure in the northern region as Bangla Bhai is seemingly running the administration there with the backing of the state minister of works Alamgir Kabir and state minister for land Ruhul Kuddus Talukdar Dulu," the Awami League chief said. Ismail Mridha, his brother Janab Ali, Bagmara upazila AL president Motiur Rahman Tuku and general secretary Zakirul Islam Shantu told Sheikh Hasina that some seven unions in the upazila are under virtual control of Bangla Bhai and his armed cadres.

Narrating his nightmarish experience of June 30, 2004, when the cadres of Bangla Bhai killed his son Yasin Ali with repeated blows of hammers and iron rods and dumped his body near the local police station, Ismail Mridah told the Awami League chief that though he identified two of the killers of his son and brought charge of murder against them, the local police didn’t arrest them.

The Awami League chief gave a patient hearing to the Bagmara AL leaders on the situation there and the activities of Bangla Bhai’ and wondered how an administration could run effectively ensuring safety and security in public life when ‘terrorists, corrupt persons and smugglers are inducted in the cabinet’.

Bitterly criticising the commerce minister for his remarks that the price spiral of essentials including rice would continue until the doomsday, Sheikh Hasina said after ruining all national institutions one after another, the government remained busy looting public money as they were nothing but a bunch of corrupt businessmen who didn’t bother about people’s sufferings and miseries.

Awami League leaders Obaidul Quader, Akhteruzzaman, Syed Abul Hossain MP, Mamtaz Hossain and SM Kamal Hossain were present.