Maskwaith Ahsan:
She enjoys her press conferences surrounded by sycophants. With that high, she abuses the critics of her corrupt regime. On July 14, 2024, she went so far as to even condemn the students protesting against the quota system, branding them as the grandchildren of Razakars (collaborators of 1971).
That’s her most favorite slang, even used frequently by her party men. Sheikh Hasina follows Robert Mugabe, the late autocratic ruler of Zimbabwe, claims herself to be the authority on the spirit of 1971 War of Liberation. Whoever criticizes the corruption, crossfires and discrimination dominating her one-party system, gets bullied by her party men as Razakars; a word most hated by Bangladeshis since 1971. Her henchmen get all their cues from Sheikh Hasina’s regularly televised press conferences.
Problem started when she failed to read the minds of Gen-Z Bangladeshis. This is a generation of sensitive souls, who felt betrayed by her nasty branding as the grandchildren of Razakars. In frustration and anger, the kids responded by chanting, Yes, we are Razakars tagged by a tyrant.
Sheikh Hasina continues to pretend as if she can’t hear the word ‘tyrant’ affixed to her. Talking literally, she continues her abuse, “Students should be ashamed of calling themselves Razakars”. Her second-in-command Obayedul Qader declared that the student wing of Awami League will give a befitting answer to the Quota Movement protesters, even though this age-old tactic of tagging the opponents as Razakar backfired this time.
The Sheikh Hasina administration green-lit its student militia and police to beat up and kill the protesters demanding reforms in the country’s lopsided quota system. It’s déjà vu of 1971 Operation Search Light authorized by Pakistani ruler Yahya. This time, on 15th July, 2024, it’s Bangladesh’s autocratic ruler Hasina who has launched Operation Search Light 2.0 against the youth of Bangladesh. Her henchmen are killing Bangladeshi students like birds, well over one hundred students killed and several hundreds injured just in the last 4 days.
Hasina staged her usual drama of inviting student protesters for dialogue. But these children refused to sit with a killer regime, refused to negotiate peace over the dead bodies of their friends. When Awami League party henchmen, police, Rapid Action Battalion and Border Guard Bangladesh failed to stop the protest, Hasina disconnected the entire country from the world by shutting down mobile and internet services. But by that time the quota movement slogans transformed into demands for Hasina to stepdown. But the tyrant has decided to fight till the end. Against the burgeoning youth, she deployed the army and declared curfew for an indefinite period.
The brutal killings, massacres and her stubbornness to stick to power have turned her into a people’s enemy.
Bangladesh is now a river of blood and a land of graveyards. The wrath of Hasina continues. It seems like she will kill till the end like a blind monster.