A barrage of what appeared provocative churns including distortion of comments of the prime minister has been crafted and circulated to rile the students and turn the protest in demand of quota reformation in public services into a cause for pandering to glorification of war criminals and undermine war heroes.
A comment made by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a news conference on Saturday stressing the need for a strong national consensus against war criminals who sided with Pakistan Army in 1971 to stop the birth of Bangladesh and committed horrendous war crimes including rape, killing and looting has been taken out of context and rather used to whip up sentiments against war heroes.
On efforts to twist PM’s statement, analysts say, the latest disinformation is almost similar to capitalise on the populist sentiment by Jamaat-e-Islami that spread on social media that notorious war criminal Delwar Hossain Sayedee, a top Jamaat leader, had been sighted on the moon and later carried out attacks on minorities in 32 districts across the country.
Referring to a series of statements made by several ministers and the student body of Awami League in favour of quota reformation, they recalled that this disinformation that PM has turned down the protest calling them razakers clearly crafted to divert the movement from where it had been started.
They referred to a recent study by Rumour scanner that found Sheikh Hasina made it to the top in the list of politicians who fell prey to disinformation. This latest rumour that she branded all the quota protesters as razakers adds to the long list of lies swirled revolving her.
And the objective is simple to score political gains by the opposition combine aligned with Jamaat-e-Islami, an outfit of war criminals while the student arm of Jamaat Islami Chhatra Shibir that has notoriety of severing tendons of liberal and progressive students on campuses.
Also campaigns have been waged on campuses that the premier has outright rejected the demand for quota reformation and slapped the tag of “war criminals” on protesters. “We demanded rights but got branded as razakars” said one such slogans.
During the press conference, the prime minister clearly stated that the quota issue has now been pending with the court, invited those who want quota reform to take part in legal process instead of forcing the executive organ or legislature to bypass judiciary.
She also informed them that any intervention on judiciary by legislature is tantamount to interfering with court and a complete violation of rule of law.
She reminded that the attorney general’s office has been fighting the legal battle against court order that reinstated the quota and unless the judiciary settles down the case, nothing can be done by the executive organ.
But following her press conference, rumours started swirling around that the government turned down the proposal of reforming the quota that did not even spare the premier despite her speech has been widely circulated by televisions.
Some of slogans that long used to evoke the brave and heroic sacrifices of war heroes have been twisted and replaced with the term razakars while demands were raised asking the premier to withdraw her statement without explaining any reason.
In contrast to slogans used for previous protests, razakar term has taken centre stage from those leading the charge in the rallies.
The circulation of this particular claim that the premier called everyone in the protest razakar is an outright lie, a design that clearly crafted to foment and mislead the protesters, according to war heroes.
Later, without any pre announcement, rallies were brought out on Dhaka University campuses where chants were used from slogans that had been circulated earlier and meant to glorify war criminals.
The PM's comment was completely focused to aware the students about the active presence of war criminals that is Jamaat-e-Islami that orchestrated war crimes including aiding the Pak army in ruthless killing of students and teachers in 1971.
