BNP’s acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has called upon the people to launch intense agitations against the locking up of the party headquarters and Chairperson Khaleda Zia's Gulshan office.
Published : 05 Jan 2015, 02:50 PM
He appeared in a function organised by a pro-BNP professionals' body at the National Press Club on Monday after being in hiding for the last few days.
Quoting National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, Fakhrul told the programme of the professionals led by pro-BNP journalist leader Ruhul Amin Gazi, “Kick and break the locks, fire the prisons.”
Both the BNP and Awami League announced rallies marking the first anniversary of the last general elections on Monday, raising tension and chances of violence. Police banned gatherings in Dhaka City to avoid violence.
After the programme, pro-government activists outside the club barred Fakhrul and Jatiya Ganatantrik Party chief Shafiul Alam Prodhan.
At one stage, they clashed with BNP supporters who came to the programme. Later, senior journalists intervened and took the situation under control.
Fakhrul and other leaders of the BNP and its allies stayed inside the club.
On Saturday night, police took BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, who had been staying at the party’s Naya Paltan office, to hospital and locked the office.
Asked about cordoning of Khaleda’s Gulshan office, police said they took the step for her ‘safety’.
Fakhrul said, “Today (Monday) is a dark day for the nation. We had lost our right to vote on this day.”
“The government is forcefully holding on to power,” he said.
“You’ve seen what they (the government) have done to the country since yesterday (Sunday). It seems that they have declared a war as they have blocked the waterways and roads.”
Protesting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s claim that Khaleda had not been confined, the BNP spokesperson said, “They are liars, cheats. They never tell the truth.”
“This is their democracy. They have hijacked the democracy for which they fought in 1971.”
“Their popularity had dropped to zero during the reign of BAKSAL. They want a one-party rule now by taking off the mask of democracy yet again,” Fakhrul said.
He also said it would not be possible to protect democracy until the current Awami League-led government was overthrown.