There July Declaration read out by by Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus on Tuesday is incomplete, commented Akhtar Hossain, member secretary of the National Citizen Party (NCP).
He made the remark at a press conference held at the NCP's temporary office on Wednesday.
"The much-awaited July declaration has been read out on the first anniversary of the mass uprising. We applaud this initiative of the government. However, we feel that if some other issues had been mentioned in the declaration, then the declaration would have been complete," he told reporters.
"Some of the demands that we have been making to the government for a long time for the completion of the declaration are absent here. If we look at the very beginning, the anti-colonial struggle has been mentioned here. But 1947 has not been mentioned. We think that the combination of all the movements -- 47, 71 and 24 -- led to the establishment of a sovereign state of Bangladesh and could have enriched this declaration even more."
Regarding the number of martyrs, Akhtar said, "This declaration uses the words 'about one thousand' regarding the number of martyrs. However, the UN report says that 1,400 people were martyred in July. In that case, the government has failed to determine the number of martyrs and injured in the last year. That is the impression we got from this declaration."
He also said various other movements were also went unrecognised.
"The movement and struggle that the people of Bangladesh have waged in the last 16 years, the issues that are important to the state in the last sixteen years, remain absent. For example, the Pilkhana massacre, Shapla Chattor massacre, judicial killings, anti-VAT movement, 2018 quota reform movement and road safety movement, anti-aggression movement against Abrar Fahad's murder and anti-Modi movement -- including these would have made the declaration complete."
Demanding a new constitution, he added, "The most important thing to us is that points 25 and 27 of the declaration mention that the next elected government will include the declaration in the schedules of the reformed constitution. When this declaration is left to the next reformed constitution, naturally the new constitution that we have demanded is bypassed. We still demand that the July declaration be included in the new constitution and the preamble to that constitution."
Akhtar had made made similar comments in a post on his verified Facebook account earlier on the same day.
He wrote, "We had to be settle for less in this declaration. We got the declaration, yet there is a lack of completeness."
However, he added that getting an official document recognising July was an achievement.
Tuesday marked the anniversary of the ouster of the Awami League government. That afternoon, CA Yunus read out the July Declaration at an event in the National Parliament area.
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Mia Golam Porwar, NCP Convener Nahid Islam, and representatives from various political parties were present at the time.
Meanwhile, Syed Abdullah Muhammad Taher, Nayeb-e-Ameer of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, has expressed disappointment over the Declaration,
His grievances include a lack of specific directives for implementing the declaration and the absence of a clear statement regarding the entitlements of those injured or killed in the 2024 student-mass uprising.
On the other hand, BNP has welcomed the declaration.
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