Detaining Fakhrul, Abbas at dead of night political vengeance: Khandaker Mosharraf

Senior member of the standing committee of opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain has condemned the detention of Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and senior leader Mirza Abbas in the small hours.

This is an extremely troubling expression of political vengeance, he said.

Plainclothesmen detained BNP’s secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and standing committee member Mirza Abbas from their residences in the capital city at around 3 am Friday, said their families and the party.

Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain was talking to Prothom Alo about the detentions in the morning.

“I unequivocally condemn this detention of the secretary general and a standing committee member of the country’s largest political party at night. This is an abominable expression of political vengeance,” he said.

He further said an emergency meeting of the standing committee of the party has been convened at this emerging situation.

The senior member of BNP’s standing committee also said this is unbelievable that the government would take the situation to this level centering the mass rally of the opposition party, especially when the (national) election is impending and even the prime minister herself is seeking votes at different rallies.

Khandaker Mosharraf said, “The country is going through an economic crisis. We can’t think the government would create such a big political crisis amid this (economic crisis).”

“We have been waging a movement for ousting the government and holding the elections under a non-party government. But the 10 December rally is our pre-scheduled programme. This is not a big deal!” he said.

He said, “The government is saying that we will commit terrorism and mayhem. We have held nine rallies, all of those were peaceful. We’ll do the same in Dhaka. We have been moving ahead in a democratic manner. Why is the government not showing even a minimum level of tolerance? Certainly there is some evil design behind this.”

BNP announced mass rallies in 10 divisional cities around three months ago. As part of this, the party organised nine rallies and filed a written application with Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) commissioner on 13 and 20 November seeking permission to organise a rally at Naya Paltan in the capital city.

The party, however, is yet to get a venue for the rally.

Amid the discussion and furore over finalising the venue, a clash broke out between the law enforcement and BNP leaders and activists on Wednesday afternoon, leaving a person killed and at least 50 others injured.

Four cases have been filed against 2,975 leaders and activists of BNP and its front organisations with Paltan, Motijheel, Ramna and Shahjahanpur police stations in the capital regarding the clash.

As of now 485 people, including several central leaders of the party, have been shown arrested in the cases.