People must not be turned against state institutions: Adviser Mahfuj

Information and Broadcasting Adviser Mahfuj Alam has said people must not be turned against state institutions.

"Under no circumstances should people be turned against the state institutions," he said in a post on his verified Facebook page today.

Mahfuj's statement comes after National Citizen Party (NCP) leader Hasnat Abdullah's Facebook post on an alleged attempt to rehabilitate the fallen Awami League, which involves the cantonment, went viral and sparked protests.

Hasnat also posted a short video of an interview where Youth and Sports Adviser Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuiyan claimed that the army chief was hesitant about the appointment of Muhammad Yunus as the chief adviser of the interim government.

Asif later published the full 17-minute-long interview on his Facebook page.    

Adviser Mahfuj in his Facebook post said the interim government has spent the last couple of months restructuring and rebuilding trust in state institutions, describing it as "a very complex process" to restore confidence and effectiveness across public bodies.

"We cannot move forward without strong, accountable, and effective state institutions," he added, noting that the interim government's performance depends heavily on these revitalised institutions.

Mahfuj said the government has already brought many institutional wrongdoers to justice through punishment, dismissal, and judicial proceedings, with more cases pending investigation. "The institutions must also purge themselves," he wrote. 

"A decade and a half of fascism has left many mechanisms of control. The process of reforming and changing these must be democratic and systematic," Mahfuj wrote.

"Let unity be recurrent, not violence. In a stable state, we can carry out reforms and justice work more quickly," he added.

Earlier, Hasnat Abdullah, chief organiser (South) of the National Citizen Party, claimed in a Facebook post that he and two others were proposed seat-sharing [in the upcoming elections] to accept an Awami League rehabilitation plan during a meeting at the Cantonment on 11 March.

Hasnat had alleged that the plan, which he described as "entirely India's," would create a "Refined Awami League" that would admit to the crimes of the Sheikh family, reject former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and promise to restore "the Awami League of Bangabandhu" to the public.