The country-wide 72-hour general strike, called by the BNP-led 18 Party Alliance, has been extended by 12 hours, following the arrest of the opposition party’s top leaders. BNP joint secretary-general, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, said this at a press conference at the party’s Naya Paltan central office, on Sunday.
The hartal will now begin at 6am on Sunday, and end at 6 pm on Wednesday, he said. On Friday, after a secretary-general-level meeting of the 18 Party Alliance, BNP acting secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir announced a 72-hour nationwide hartal from 6am on Saturday, to press for their demand of the election under a non-party caretaker government (CG).
Hours after the announcement, Detective Branch of police (DB) detained the party’s national standing committee members Moudud Ahmed, MK Anwar and Rafiqul Islam Mia, Khaleda Zia’s adviser and former FBCCI president, Abdul Awal Mintoo, and Khaled’a personal assistant, Shamsur Rahman Shimul Bishwas. The BNP leaders were arrested in connection with their alleged involvement in hartal-related violence, the police said. The DB police arrested them while they were coming out of the party chief’s Gulshan residence, on Friday midnight.
Rizvi, who is also the party’s office secretary, slammed the government, saying that the ruling Awami League has become desperate to hang on to power. It shows that the government has a secret agenda to hold the national poll, putting the BNP leaders in jail, he said.
“Our ongoing anti-government movement over the CG issue will not be thwarted. Rather, it will intensify, and the government will be forced to quit power,” he warned. He also alleged that personal security of the BNP leaders, as well as its alliance partners, has been hampered by the government-indulged violence. “People from all sections, including journalists, lawyers and human rights activists, should come forward in the interest of our security,” he said. Rizvi also tore into the government for launching raids at the residences of the opposition party men, including Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Mirza Abbas and Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, and said that the move reflected the government’s fascist mentality.
Security measures have been tightened in and around the BNP’s Naya Paltan headquarters on Saturday, with a large number of police and plain-clothed law-enforcers have been deployed in the area. The party office was almost cordoned off, as no one, except journalists, was allowed to enter the party office.
-With The Independent input
