'AL leaders provoking BNP'

Senior BNP leader Mirza Abbas has alleged that ruling Awami League leaders are issuing provocative statements on his party’s agitation to implicate its leaders and activists in more cases.

He said this while talking to reporters on Friday at his residence in Dhaka.

When asked to comment on the Awami League leaders’ remarks that people would not respond to the BNP’s ‘soft movement’, Abbas said: “What’s soft movement? The government wants to provoke the BNP so that more leaders and activists can be sued.”

The BNP Standing Committee member said the party’s recent demonstrations against the newly formulated National Broadcast Police and the Israeli offensive in Palestine had been successful.

The BNP had called a protest rally against the policy at Suhrawardy Udyan on Aug 19 and took out a black-flag procession on Aug 16 in Dhaka against the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

He said his party would launch movement against giving Parliament the power to impeach Supreme Court judges.

“The party high command is thinking of announcing programmes against giving back the authority to impeach judges to a Parliament devoid of public representation."

However, the BNP’s Dhaka metropolitan unit Convenor Abbas said the party would not call any ‘malevolent’ programme as the Awami League did before the 1/11 (in 2007).

"We don’t have any intention to gain power by killing people. We only want to give back power to the people.”

The BNP-led 20-Party Alliance is holding a 10-day public relation programme from Aug 21 to drum up supports for its key demand – the holding of a fresh parliamentary election under a non-party caretaker administration.