Prime Minster and Awami League (AL) President Sheikh Hasina on Thursday urged her party men to remain prepared for thwarting any kind of ill-activity and conspiracy against the country's continued peace and democracy.
"Anti-liberation communal groups and anti-democracy domestic and foreign evil forces are still hatching conspiracies in various ways. I call upon the leaders and workers at all levels of the party to be ready to protect the continuity of development and democracy by confronting any conspiracy of this evil force unitedly," she said.
The premier made the call in a message issued marking the AL's 74th founding anniversary to be observed on Friday.
"On this day, I recall with respect the greatest Bengali of all time, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. I recall Awami League's founder president Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani and general secretary Shamsul Haque. I recall with respect Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy," she said.
She also recalled with respect the four national leaders, and all martyrs of struggles for freedom, Liberation War and struggles for democracy and all leaders and workers of AL who had embraced martyrdom to turn the party into the largest organization of the masses.
On this occasion, the AL president greeted the party leaders, workers and supporters alongside the countrymen.
She recalled that the party was established on June 23-24 in 1949 at "Rose Garden" on K M Das Lane in Dhaka and said the history of the AL is closely linked with the people's struggle for realizing their rights.
"The Language Movement in 1952, the Jukta Front election in 1954, the anti-Ayub movement in 1962, the restoration of communal harmony after the 1964 riot, the six-point movement in 1966 and the mass upsurge in 1969 - all took place under the leadership of the AL," she said.
In the general elections of 1970, the people of Bangladesh gave an absolute majority to the Awami League and in continuation to that, Bangabandhu on March 7 in 1971 declared that "This time the struggle is for our freedom. This time the struggle is for our independence" the Prime Minister mentioned.
She continued that on the Black Night of March 25 in 1971, the Pakistani occupation forces swooped on the people and the history's most brutal genocide began.
Sheikh Hasina said Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had declared the country's independence in the first hour of March 26, she said.
Soon after the declaration of independence by Bangabandhu, Pakistani occupation forces arrested him and sent to West Pakistan jail, she added.
The premier said the country had achieved its final victory on December 16 in 1971 following the Liberation War conducted under the AL government formed at Mujibnagar in Meherpur district on April 10.
After independence, when Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was busy building the nation, the assassins killed Bangabandhu and most of his family members on the fateful night of August 15 in 1975.
Subsequently on November 3 in 1975, the four national leaders were killed in prison to make Awami League leaderless.
She said after a long struggle to establish democracy, the AL returned to power in 1996 and then the AL ran the country successfully from 1996 to 2001.
Sheikh Hasina said the AL government turned food-deficit Bangladesh into a food-surplus country, signed the Ganges water sharing treaty with India and inked the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) peace treaty.
