I’m under house arrest: Khaleda

Opposition Leader Khaleda Zia says she has been put under house arrest, barely a day before general elections that she has asked the people to resist.

In a media statement on Friday, she called on the people to boycott Sunday's 'farcical' polls.

"None will endorse this farce (elections)," she said in her first statement since Dec 29.

The BNP-led 18-Party alliance has boycotted the polls and pressing for its demand of a non-party government's supervision in elections.

"This frightened government has cordoned off my house with law enforcing agencies and detectives ever since I called for a peaceful 'March for Democracy'," she said.

Law enforcers had allegedly barred Khaleda from leaving her Gulshan residence on Dec 29 to attend the Opposition's 'March for Democracy' at the Naya Paltan.

"I'm not being allowed to go outside. The government has in effect put me under house arrest," said the BNP chief.

She has been 'confined' to her house since last Sunday, the BNP claimed.

"Not only that, my [Gulshan] office and the BNP headquarters, too, have been cordoned off," she said in the statement signed by her Press Secretary Maruf Kamal Khan.

The Opposition has already called a 48-hour shutdown amid its ongoing blockade of roads, railways and waterways across Bangladesh to foil the polls.

The former Prime Minister said she was not afraid of house arrest, incarceration or tortures. "I have full faith on the Almighty and the people."

She alleged the ruling quarter had threatened to ‘annihilate’ the Opposition after Sunday's polls.

"The Awami League rulers are threatening to destroy the Opposition party branding it as 'terrorist'.

"Ironically, their activists are being detained while bombing and torching vehicles, setting fire to residences of judges and the Hindu community but are not facing trials," alleged the Opposition Leader.

Police, however, say it is the Opposition supporters who are behind these acts of terror.