PAKISTAN OBSERVER
23rd July 1955
Awamis Vindicate
Party Stand
Pledge To Fight Or Fall
On Principles
BY A STAFF REPORTER
The General Secretary of the East Pakistan Awami Muslim League, Mr. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, said here yesterday (Friday) that the Awami League MCA’s would resign from their membership if they failed to secure full regional autonomy for East Bengal, Bengali as one of the State Languages and joint electorate. “There will be no compromise with any individual or party on these three issues”, he said. He was addressing a public meeting organised under the aegis of the Awami League at Paltan Maidan yesterday afternoon. Mr. Ataur Rahamn Khan, vice-President of E.P.A.M.L. presided. The meeting was organised to clarify Awami League M.C.A.s’ stand in the last 7-day Consembly session at Murree. It was alleged that due to mis-reporting and mis-propaganda in the local press, with the single exception of a Bengali mouthpiece of the Awami League, there had been much confusion and misunderstanding in this province in regard to Mr. Suhrawardy’s stand. Prominent speakers, including the Vice President of the Awami League, accused the news services and press correspondents present at Murree of mis-reporting and mis-quoting the Awami M.C.A.S. Mr. Mujibur Rahman said, Mr. Mohammed Ali had no right to become the Prime Minister again. He had misruled the country. The imposition of Section 92-A in East Bengal was motivatedÑ largely if not wholly by the desire to save the Muslim League leaders who had been repudiated by the people, and the Prime Minister and his colleagues devoted a great deal of their time, not for safeguarding national interests, but for justifying Constituent Assembly’s right to misrule in perpetuity and for condemning those who contested the validity of the theory that the people had surrendered their sovereignty forever and ever to a group of squabbling, power-hungry politicians. Mr. Mohammed Ali, he said was greatly responsible for the chaos and confusion which took the country for long and had banished democracy out of Pakistan.
PLEA FOR RESPONSIBILE GOVT. AT CENTRE
He said, the present Government at the Centre was a care-taker one and it must be replaced by a set of elected representatives who would be responsible to the people. And if the Awami League got into the Cabinet, they would get full regional autonomy both for East and West Pakistan, Bengali as one of the State Languages and joint electorate and fight hard for implementation of the 21-point mandate of the United Front, he added.
Mediately release the political prisoners and demanded that February 21 must be declared a public holiday.