An emergency meeting of the standing committee of opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has been convened following the detention of the party’s secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and another senior leader Mirza Abbas in the small hours of Friday.
The meeting would begin virtually at 11 am Friday, said standing committee members Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain and Iqbal Hasan Mahmud to Prothom Alo in the morning.
Plainclothesmen detained party’s secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and standing committee member Mirza Abbas from their residences in the capital city, said their families and the party.
BNP standing committee convened the meeting at this emerging situation.
Speaking to Prothom Alo, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said, “We will take emergency decisions in the meeting of the standing committee regarding the party’s rally in Dhaka on 10 December and the following course of action.”
Iqbal Hasan Mahmud told Prothom Alo, “The meeting of BNP’s standing committee has been convened due to the unwanted situation that has been created. A discussion on the next course of action of the party will be discussed in the meeting.”
BNP announced to hold 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.
Aside from Naya Paltan and Suhrawardy Udyan as the rally venue, Bir Shrestha Shaheed Sipahi Mustafa Kamal Stadium in Kamalapur and Bangla College ground in Mirpur are the latest venues that came into discussion.
Sources said names of the new venues came during a discussion of BNP delegates with the DMP commissioner on Thursday night.
Amid the discussion and furore over finalising the venue, a clash broke out between 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 have been shown arrested in the cases.