Sayeed Muhummad: Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu has turned down a statement issued by the US embassy in Dhaka over the attacks on student protesters for road safety, calling it to be unprecedented.
The minister made the statement said this while talking to reporters at his Secretariat office in Dhaka yesterday, reports Bangla daily Prothom Alo, adding, he also urged the embassy to withdraw its statement,.
Admitting that there were clashes in Dhanmondi, Dhaka, Inu claimed no attack took place on the protests and the children.
There were some sporadic clashes across the capital which the law enforcers tried to control and the US embassy’s a statement in such a situation is a matter of grief, he said.
According to the statement, the children’s protests were subsided through use of force by carrying out barbaric attacks on them, but the truth is that no such incident occurred in the first place, the minister said.
Alleging that the statement misrepresented the situation in Dhaka, Inu said it was an attempt by the embassy to interfere in the country’s internal matter.
The information minister also rejected a statement of UN Resident Coordinator Mia Seppo on the protests, also dubbing it unprecedented as it misrepresented the real situation in the country.
The minister also urged the UN resident coordinator in Bangladesh to withdraw the statement and refrain from making such statement in future.
A written response of the government in this regard will be sent to the US Embassy and UN office in Dhaka, he added.
The minister also said that the attackers on journalists during the student protests demanding safe roads will be identified and brought to book.
Towards the end of the student demonstrations for safe roads, some journalists were assaulted which is regrettable, Inu said.