Ministers and senior leaders of the Awami League-led 14-party alliance yesterday launched a broadside against civil society members for making efforts to hold a national dialogue.

Their criticism comes a day after Nagorik Samaj, a civil society platform, requested the president, the prime minister and the BNP chairperson in three separate letters to initiate a dialogue to find a way out of the political crisis that has so far left 69 people dead.

Comparing the civil society members to paid fighters who work for the highest bidder, AL presidium member Kazi Zafarullah said they proposed a solution with the intention to become ministers.

"They want to be caretaker government advisers and also want to become ministers without any public support or mandate," he told The Daily Star yesterday.

Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed termed the civil society members' proposal "unrealistic and unacceptable". He said the present government could not hold talks with the political parties that were carrying out violence and terrorist activities, killing people and destroying national property.

"Any such dialogue would be a compromise with terrorism and violence, and would only encourage further terrorism in the country," he said while speaking at a press conference in the Secretariat yesterday.

In another scathing remark on the civil society, Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon said those talking about a dialogue were the actors behind the 1/11 changeover and they would not be found on the streets a few days later.

"Those who stay abroad when the country goes through a critical period are basically shedding crocodile tears for a dialogue," he said at a programme in front of Motijheel Ideal School and College.

Dismissing the possibility of a dialogue with the BNP-led 20-party alliance, Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu said, "There can be no rapprochement between Razakars and freedom fighters, between war criminals and patriots, between fire-terrorists and the government. The fire-terrorists too have to surrender like the Razakars and the war criminals."

He was speaking at a programme at Ramesh Chandra auditorium at Dhaka University yesterday, BSS reports.