Published : 30 Oct 2026, 09:58 PM
Updated : 30 Oct 2026, 09:58 PM
The National Citizen Party (NCP) has staged a mass protest outside the National Museum in Dhaka’s Shahbagh to push for four demands, including the resignation of the home affairs and energy ministers.
Organised by the Dhaka Metropolitan North and South units of the NCP, the rally on Friday afternoon accused the government of failure to run the country and corruption, warning Prime Minister Tarique Rahman of a blockade programme if their demands are not met.
In addition to the resignation of the two ministers, the rally also raised three other demands.
They are: abolishing the “one-party Constitution Amendment Committee” and forming a Constitution Reform Council based on the referendum verdict, repealing all laws that violate human rights and freedom of speech and not passing the proposed amendment to the Cyber Security Act, and quickly completing the trials of the murders in the July Uprising, implementing the verdicts, and removing the inspector general of police who “sought permission for extrajudicial killings”.
NCP chief Nahid Islam said, “We can see very clearly that the BNP government and Tarique Rahman have no plan to run the country. They only have plans on how to corrupt the country, how to loot it, how to extort it, how to establish criminality.”
Referring to the July Uprising, he said: “After bidding farewell to one dictatorship, we are now seeing the rise of a new dictatorship. Our promise to you is that we will defeat both the fallen dictatorship and this new dictatorship, God willing.”
Nahid also spoke of the Japan visit by the premier, saying: “We see that Japan is trying to create a corridor through Bangladesh once again. The government is trying to hand over the illegal corridor to India. Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, we want to say clearly that the people of Bangladesh will not accept any such illegal corridor.”
He also issued a warning about the expiry of the Ganges Water Treaty next December, saying: “If the Ganga Accord is not fairly renewed next December, the people of Bangladesh will take to the streets again. This time we will not give up even a single bit of our fair share in the Ganga Water Treaty, In Sha Allah.”
Nahid demanded the resignations of the home affairs and energy ministers, calling for them to “take full responsibility” for their failures to curb unrest, murders and disappearances.
“If not, we will hold protest marches all over Bangladesh. With those protest marches, we will surround Tarique Rahman and get our demands met, In Sha Allah.”
NCP Member Secretary Akhter Hossen also spoke at the event, saying: “Before forming the government, the BNP repeatedly said that everything would be fine after the elections.
“It has been nine months since the elections. But nothing has been fixed in Bangladesh’s law-and-order situation, democracy, and the security of the common people. Far from the country being fixed after the elections, the BNP as a party has not been fixed either.”
