The BNP has extended the 72-hour strike by a day to protest the arrest
of its senior leaders.
BNP leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said his party has called for a separate
dawn-to-dusk countrywide strike on Wednesday to ‘raise our voice
against the arrests’.
But Rizvi said this call for strike on Wednesday was a BNP call, not
by the 18-party Opposition alliance it heads.
It was not clear why that was so because normally the alliance
partners would back the call as an expression of solidarity.
Meanwhile, the police appear as yet undecided on what to do with
senior BNP leaders, including three Standing Committee members,
arrested last night.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Deputy Commissioner Masudur Rahman told
mediapersons on Saturday that the arrested leaders would be sent to
court ‘at the right time’.
He however, declined to reveal the charges against the BNP leaders.
Three senior BNP leaders, an advisor and a personal assistant of BNP
chairperson Khaleda Zia, were among those arrested by police since
Friday night.
They were taken to the Detective Branch headquarters at Dhaka’s Minto Road.
Around 8:15pm on Friday, police nabbed BNP Standing Committee members
Moudud Ahmed, MK Anwar and Rafiqul Islam Mia from near Hotel Sonargaon
at Karwan Bazar.
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s Advisor Abdul Awal Mintoo and her
Special Assistant Shamsur Rahman Shimul Biswas were picked up around
1:00am just past midnight.
The arrests came hours after the Opposition 18-Party alliance had
announced a nationwide 72-hour general strike starting from
Sunday.-bdnews24.com
