Main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party standing committee member Mirza Abbas on Monday said that their party was ready to hold a rally in Dhaka on December 10 defying all sorts of repressions and ‘terror activities’ unleashed by the government.
‘None of our Dhaka city leaders now can stay at home as the government has created such a terrible situation here by resorting to terror activities. But our activists are not afraid of it,’ he said.
The BNP leader made the remarks while speaking at a press briefing at the party’s Naya Paltan central office.
He said that they would make the rally a success by tackling the repressive acts. ‘We urge the government not to create any obstacle in our peaceful rally.’
Abbas, who is overseeing the party’s preparatory activities for arranging the rally, once again said that they may consider holding their programme at any suitable venue inside Dhaka other than Suhrawardi Udyan and on the bank of the Turag River.
He strongly condemned the attack on BNP executive committee member Ishraque Hossain by the activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League near Jagannath University on Sunday while distributing leaflets for the party’s December 10 rally
‘By attacking Ishraq, they (Awami League) proved that they not, BNP, are indulging in terrorism. This’s not an isolated attack, but they are carrying out such incidents one after another,’ the BNP leader said.
He said that the ruling party ‘cadres’ attacked the house of BNP leader Barrister Nasir Uddin Asim’ a few days back and carried out a crude bomb explosion in front of the BNP office at Nayapaltan.
Abbas said that the government itself had been propagating that there would be terrorism centring BNP’s rally. ‘I would like to know why the ruling party is attacking us when we’re going to hold a peaceful rally from where our next course of programmes will be announced.’
The BNP leader said that they would not respond to any kind of provocation by the government as their main goal was to hold the progranmme without any chaos.
He said that their party had no plan rather than holding the rally peacefully.
‘We’ll just hold the rally from 12:00 noon to 4:00pm and then our leaders and activists will return to their homes,’ he said.
The BNP leader alleged that police encircled his Shahjahanpur House since morning.
‘There was a workers’ meeting at my house today (Monday) where I was supposed to give them directives for arranging our rally in a peaceful manner, but I was not allowed to do that. My house was surrounded by police,’ he said.
He questioned whether the country had been in the grasp of terrorists that BNP leaders were now not safe both at their homes and offices.