Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) will hold country-wide mass processions on Saturday with 10 demands, which includes resignation of ruling Awami League and holding the next general elections under a neutral caretaker government.
Ganatantra Mancha, 12-party alliance, LDP, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and other opposition parties have also declared their support to the movement.
Sources said that with this programme the opposition parties are starting their simultaneous movement to oust the government.
BNP had announced this countrywide mass procession on 10 December, during their divisional rally in Dhaka. But later, as Awami League’s national council in the capital fell on the same date, they postponed the mass procession in Dhaka to 30 December.
The party leaders said, although the situation is not as intense as it was before the divisional rally on 10 December, BNP activists across the country are feeling anxious.
From 7 December till now, around 1500 BNP leaders and activists have been arrested across the country. Organisationally important and active leaders were the main targets of this mass arrest.
Earlier, BNP leaders alleged that the police is carrying out arrests as per the list of activists present at police stations. Still, BNP is carrying on with its plans to hold a mass procession.
A source at BNP said, to make the first programme of the simultaneous movement a success, they have undertaken extensive preparations. The entire country has been divided into 20 cities and districts and 20 central leaders, which included seven members of the national standing committee, have been handed the responsibility to coordinate the event.
Each of them will lead a mass procession, which will run from 11:00am to 3:00 pm.
After the mass procession, the top BNP leaders will sit with local leaders to discuss the party’s 27 points ‘Outline of structural reforms of state’. They will brief the local leaders on it, so that they can take BNP’s proposed outline to the masses. The leaders have already reached different districts and metropolitans to take part in the mass procession.
A BNP source informed, the Chattogram mass procession will be led by senior leader Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain. Standing committee member Gayeshwar Chandra Roy will lead in Rajshahi, Abdul Moyeen Khan in Khulna, Nazrul Islam Khan in Cumilla, Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury in Barishal, Selima Rahman in Gazipur, Iqbal Hasan Mahmud will lead in Mymensigh.
In Sylhet, Mohammad Shahjahan; in Kishoreganj, Abdul Awal Mintoo; in Noakhali, Shamsuzzaman; in Sunamganj, Ahmed Azam Khan; in Narayanganj, Zainul Abedin; in Faridpur, Nitai Roy Chowdhury; in Bogura, Amanullah Aman; in Dinajpur, Mizanur Rahman; in Chandpur, Zainul Abedin Farroque; in Bhola, Majibur Rahman Sarwar; in Jashorem Syed Moazzem Hossain and in Rajbari, Habib Un Nabi Khan will lead the mass procession.
BNP vice chairman Abdul Awal Mintoo told Prothom Alo on Friday, “The gist of BNP’s 10-point movement is that we want the ruling government to resign. So, the mass procession on 24 December will be just the beginning of the movement that will force the government to resign.”
However, at the last moment, BNP called off the mass procession at Rangpur city and district after the local administration requested the party to postpone the programme due to the forthcoming city corporation election. The mass procession will be held there on 30 December instead.
Arrests before the mass procession
BNP has alleged that their leaders and activists are facing the same repression and arrests ahead of the mass processions as they endured before the divisional rally in Dhaka.
On last Thursday, 33 BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami leaders and activists from Noakhali, Chuadanga and Nilphamari were arrested, according to the Prothom Alo correspondents of the respective regions. Later, the court sentenced them to the prison.
The police said, many of them are accused in older cases and many of them were conducting secret meetings and plotting disruptive activities.
Prothom Alo correspondent from Noakhali said, on Thursday night, officers of Sudharam Police Station in Noakhali and the district’s Detective Branch (DB) conducted a joint operation at Noakhali municipality’s no.9 ward’s former councillor Delwar Hossain’s residence and arrested him.
Noakhali Municipality BNP president Abu Naser and 24 leaders and activists of associate parties were also arrested in the operation.
Sudharam police station’s acting officer in charge (OC) Anwarul Islam said, all of the arrested BNP leaders, activists are accused in older cases.
BNP’s Chuadanga Sadar upazila organising secretary Mahbubul Islam and Sadar upazila Chhatra Dal’s joint general secretary Amanullah Aman were arrested on charge of sabotage. They were arrested on Thursday night from different spots in the upazila.
In Nilphamari, Jamaat-e-Islam’s district nayeb-e-amir Khairul Aman (50) and six other leaders and activists were arrested on accusation of plotting disruptive activities.
BNP organising secretary and acting office secretary Syed Emran Saleh held a press conference at the party’s central office in Naya Paltan on Friday morning. He said, in Noakhali 24 BNP leaders and activists were arrested from a meeting to prepare for the mass procession. After that, throughout the night, BNP leaders, activists and followers were searched by the police and their family members were harassed. Several BNP leaders have also been threatened that fictitious cases will be lodged against them.
A leader missing for six days, claims BNP
At Friday’s press conference, BNP said that Dhaka city BNP’s ward no.36 organising secretary Jamshed Rony has been missing for six days. His cellphone is currently switched off. His family members and BNP leaders have inquired at police stations and at the DB office, but still there is no sign of him.
Jamshed was active on social media about the corruption charges against the government. BNP asked the government to disclose Jamshed’s whereabouts.
*This report appeared in the print edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ashfaq-Ul-Alam Niloy