Opposition BNP on Thursday accused the government of instigating communal riot across the country in a planned way through carrying out attacks on the religious minorities.“As far as I know, government’s people are carrying out attacks on the minorities and Shaheed Minars at different places because they want to divert the attention of majority Muslims– who were emotionally hurt by some bloggers — to a different direction. The government has links with those bloggers,” said BNP joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.
The BNP leader came up with the remarks at a post-hartal press conference held at the party’s Nayapaltan central office in the capital.
Rizvi urged his party leaders and activists to stand beside minority people and ensure their security.
BNP called the hartal programme protesting “police attacks” on its scheduled demonstration in the city on Wednesday afternoon. Following suit, BNP’s ally Jamaat-e-Islami also announced a dawn-to-dusk lockdown programme for the day.
But, finally a meeting of the 18-party opposition alliance, led by BNP and Jamaat, decided to observe the hartal as an action programme of the alliance to protest Wednesday’s police atrocities.
Rizvi claimed that police arrested over 250 opposition leaders and activists during the daylong shutdown while 600 fell prey to victims of torture by the law enforcers and the armed ruling party cadres.
“More than 2,500 leaders and activists of our party were implicated in fabricated cases,” he went on.
The BNP leader said the shutdown had been successful with the spontaneous participation of people from all walks of life.
He thanked and expressed gratitude to people on behalf of his party chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia.
Referring to the detention of four BNP MPs during the hartal, Rizvi, also BNP office affairs secretary, alleged police physically assaulted BNP MPs Rehana Akhter Renu, Shammi Akhter, Asifa Ashrafi Papia and Rasheda Begum Hira.
“I’ve doubt whether there had been any such attacks on lawmakers in a civilized country,” he said.
Police detained the four female BNP MPs as they tried to enter the party’s Nayaplatan central office around 1030 am defying the law enforcers’ resistance.
The law enforcers, however, set them free in the evening.
(Source: UNB_
