Arakan News Agency
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Khaleda Zia on Sunday called the repression of Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar forces as ‘genocide’, asking the Bangladesh authorities to give them shelter as much as possible.
“I am deeply shocked and concerned over the brutal genocide being carried out by the government forces of neighbouring Myanmar on the Rohingya community,” she said in a statement issued by her press secretary Maruf Kamal Khan.
The BNP leader also called on the international community to play an active role in bringing an end to the persecution of Rohingyas and to ensure that they live their homeland of Myanmar with safety and security.
A former prime minister, Khaleda Zia was very critical of Myanmar leader Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for the persecution of Rohingyas.
“The Rohingyas are being killed by shooting and slaughtering. They are being burnt to death. They are being evicted from their homestead setting fire to their houses, villages after villages. Rohingya women are being violated. Even infants are not being spared,” Khaleda observed giving a gloomy picture of the situation in Myanmar’s Rakhine (Arakan) state.
“I am calling upon all humanitarian states, specially the Muslim world, United Nations, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and other international organisations to come forward to compel the Myanmar government to establish peace and stop the persecution of Rohingyas,” Khaleda said.
Khaleda also held Aung San Suu Kyi led government responsible for the “barbaric repression” on the Rohingya people and termed her as “mastermind of genocide”.
“It is a matter of great regret that no military ruler is responsible for the atrocities, but a Nobel peace prize laureate. We are stunned as how she (Suu Kyi) recognises such massacre after being repressed for long,” Khaleda said.
“We are stunned thinking how she [Suu Kyi] who herself suffered repression in jail for long is allowing this barbaric act!”
Making a clarion call upon the Myanmar authorities to immediately halt the genocide, Khaleda said, “Don’t let even a single man be killed or fall victim of eviction and repression.
