TIB urges AL, BNP to start talks

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the graft watchdog’s Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman said, “The rising violence, chaos and disorder are deeply worrying, regrettable and unacceptable by any standard.”

“Failure to exercise restraint and stop the negative, confrontational and destructive political game can be of grave risk for our journey to democracy and democratic institutionalization,” he said.

He called upon the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and opposition leader Khaleda Zia ‘to pause for a moment’ in the spirit of glorious independence and liberation war, and consider implications of the violent and ‘aggressive political game for the people of the country whose leaders they are and in whose name they are involved in politics.’

“This is the time for you, Honorable Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, to call off the self-defeating contest of legitimacy, and place people’s interest above anything else,” he said. The statement also called upon the two leaders to find ‘a negotiated settlement’ on how the forthcoming elections can be held in a manner acceptable to both sides. “The solution lies in a change of their mutual dislike and distrust, which is in their hands only,” it noted.