\\\'Won\\\'t accept trouble-making from London\\\'

In an oblique hint to BNP senior vice chairman Tarique Rahman who is living in UK for the last 7 years, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said her government will not tolerate ‘trouble-making’ from London. “Someone will cause problems for our development by remote control from London. My government will not tolerate that,” Hasina told a civic reception organised by the Awami League’s UK chapter at the Sheraton Hotel in London’s Park Lane. Hasina highlighted the various achievements of her government, including the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) with India, which will now materialise. She continued her speech even as nearly one hundred opposition supporters gathered with brooms and placards outside the hotel, chanting various slogans including “Go back Hasina” and “Light the fires now”. The Bangladesh prime minister came down hard on the agitators. “Why this demonstration against me? Are they protesting the implementation of the Land Boundary Agreement or the achievements over securing our maritime boundaries?” The prime minister said that Bangladesh was facing two types of calamities— natural and manmade. “The man behind the violence is here (in London),” said Hasina, also the President of Awami League, pointing to Tarique Rahman, who was arrested in 2007 during the military-backed caretaker regime. Implicated in a slue of corruption cases, BNP chief Khaleda Zia’s elder son Tarique has been living in London since September, 2008, after being released on parole. Later he was declared absconding by a Dhaka court in a money laundering case. Referring to the BNP’s ‘anti-India’ stance in the past, Hasina told the gathering: “They are now supporting the treaty which they had earlier termed as a ‘deal for slavery’. “He (Tarique) is ordering demonstration here while his mother went all out to meet (Narendra) Modi in Dhaka. Why this flattery? For what?” she said, pointing to Khaleda Zia. The PM said Bangladesh would have achieved much more than the 6.51 per cent GDP growth if the violent political agitation at the the beginning of 2015 had not happened, according to a news agency.