... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums..
yesterday asked how much blood the BNP chief needed to quench her thirst.
"The opposition leader is not happy over the way she unleashes violence. She wants more destruction and anarchy. She needs more blood," Hasina said.
"I don't know how much blood would satisfy her thirst. I want to ask her how much blood of people she would take."
The prime minister made the comments while addressing a programme at the Gono Bhaban, where she handed over cheques to the victims of Jamaat-Hefajat mayhem at Fatikchhari in Chittagong on April 11.
She said the "vengeful opposition" is burning people to death; even kids are not spared. "They don't want development, they want dead bodies."
Urging the opposition to refrain from destructive acts in the name of hartal, Hasina said there is no public involvement in their movement.
She said, "The BNP does not believe in democracy, it believes in terrorism."
About her dialogue offer to the opposition leader, the prime minister said she requested her to sit for talks in the interest of the people.
"The way she turned down my proposal is not decent and the language she used is not political. She told me that she won't sit with me," the PM said.
She said Bangladesh was turned into a haven for snuffies and Death Eaters during the last BNP-Jamaat rule. "They want to take the country back to that dark chapter," she added.