Dhaka: Mentioning that the patrons of war criminals who had been involved in genocide during the 1971 Liberation War are equally guilty, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday said they should also be tried for their crimes.

‘We’ve held the trial of war criminals and executed the court verdicts. I think it’s necessary to equally try those who rewarded the war criminals, gave the national flag to their hands and made them ministers in independent Bangladesh,’ she said while addressing a discussion in the city, reports the UNB.

The Prime Minister continued, ‘The war criminals carried out the genocide. But those who patronised them, made them ministers, MPs and created scope for them to do politics are equally guilty.’

Ruling Awami League arranged the programme at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre marking the Genocide Day.

Sheikh Hasina said no genocide with so severity was committed in any other country across the world where so many people had been killed in a short time. ‘There’s no newspaper in the world that didn’t carry the news of this genocide.’

Coming down hard on BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia for expressing doubt about the number of martyrs in the 1971 Liberation War, she said, ‘I become surprised when some political leaders in our country, even Khaleda Zia, say that 30 lakh people were not killed (during the Liberation War).’

Khaleda thinks so as she is habituated to killing people, Hasina said. ‘Her husband had killed people and she is killing them as well.’

Ruling party leaders Obaidul Quader, Tofail Ahmed, Amir Hossain Amu, Matia Chowdhury and Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, among others, addressed the discussion presided over by AL President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The Pakistani occupation forces carried out the brutalities and cowardly attacks on the unarmed Bangalees on the black night of March 25 in 1971.

The day was officiallyobserved as the Genocide Day for the second time in the country as parliament unanimously adopted a resolution on March 11, 2017 to observe March 25 as the Genocide Day.