Hasina says BNP starts blame game

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday said Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has started playing “blame game” after being rejected by the people in the city corporation elections.

“The BNP has started playing blame game after not getting response from the people in the city corporation polls and their tricks have been caught red-handed,” she said.

Sheikh Hasina, also the Awami League president, made the accusation while delivering her introductory speech at a meeting of her party’s central working committee at Ganabhaban in the city this afternoon.

Her comments came as police have arrested Rajshahi BNP general secretary Matiur Rahman Montu over the bomb explosion at a meeting organised for Mosaddek Hossain Bulbul, the BNP mayoral candidate for the upcoming city corporation election.

Rajshahi police officials said that BNP leaders ‘planned the attack by themselves’ in an effort to ‘raise questions’ about the election environment.

Montu was detained by police from his home in the Rajshahi city’s Ramchandrapur area late on Saturday after police found audio of a ‘phone conversation’ involving Montu and BNP assistant pffice secretary Saiful Islam Tipu, said Rajshahi Metropolitan Police spokesman Iftekhayar Alam.

Referring to unleashing of killing, terrorism and arson attacks by the BNP in 2013, 2014 and 2015, the prime minister said the BNP has a habit to hurl bombs and ransack vehicles by themselves.

“They will stage an incident and later put blame on the Awami League. They are expert in staging drama … they want to draw international attention through it,” she said, adding none can overtake the BNP in this falsehood.

The premier said directives are there so that no untoward incident takes place centering the ensuing city corporation polls of Rajshahi, Sylhet and Barisal.

“We have directed the law enforcement agencies to arrest the troublemakers whoever might be and whatever party they belong to as we want that everybody will conduct election campaign freely. We’ve maintained that environment,” she said.

Then, she said, cocktails were exploded at a meeting of the BNP candidate in Rajshahi and the BNP put blame on Awami League for it. “But as per the statement of the Rajshahi BNP leader, they committed the crime,” she said.

The prime minister said the BNP wanted to take this incident to the international level and it also got huge publicity in the global media. “There is no doubt that various games will start when the national election is nearing,” she remarked.

Referring to the history of the country, Sheikh Hasina said the BNP killed people in the past by hurling grenades and bombs and carrying out arson attacks.

In this connection, she mentioned the killings of Shah AMS Kibria in Sylhet, Ahsanullah Master in Gazipur and Manjurul Imam in Khulna, killing of journalists in Khulna, grenade attacks on Sylhet city mayor Badaruddin Qamran and Women Awami League meeting in Sylhet.

‘If we see the history, throwing bombs and grenades and killing of the people are the only work of the BNP,” she said.

The premier added that the BNP committed misdeeds and harboured terrorism and militancy and wanted to destroy Bangladesh through these crimes.