Police obstruct BNP’s procession in Faridpur

A ‘black flag’ procession brought out by the Faridpur unit of Bangladesh Nationalist Party protesting at the hike in commodity prices faced obstructions from the police in the district town on Friday.

The BNP leaders were then forced to hold a brief rally as the law enforcement barred them from a larger programme, alleged the leaders of the key opposition party.

Faridpur district unit of BNP organised the programmes as part of the party’s central activities to press home ‘one-point’ including protesting unabated price hike and demands of withdrawing ‘trumped up’ cases against BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia and other political prisoners and their release and dissolving the ‘illegal parliament’.

Witnesses said the leaders and activists of BNP and its associate bodies gathered in the General Hospital intersection area at around 11:00 am. The procession with ‘black flag’ started around 11:40 am with various slogans against the recently concluded 12th parliamentary election and the government formed through this.

Just after five minutes or so, the police stopped the procession in front of the press club. The BNP leaders had a heated debate there but the procession was not allowed to move ahead.

At this time, the BNP leaders started giving speeches standing on a side of the road.

They termed the parliamentary election as “dummy election” and the government as “dummy government”.

Recalling that the 2014 parliamentary election was “without voters” and the 2018 parliamentary election was held “at night”, the BNP leaders said this year, the competition was against the “dummy candidates”.

They further said BNP will not leave the streets until the government falls.

During the rally, a traffic jam was created on the road.

Just 10 minutes after starting the rally, additional police force and detective agency members forced the BNP leaders to cut short the rally, they alleged.

District BNP’s acting member secretary Afzal Hossain, joint convener Zulfiqar Hossain, district Jubo Dal president Rajib Hasan and city Jubo Dal president Benzir Ahmed, among others, addressed the rally.

Faridpur Kotwali police station inspector (operation) M Abdul Gaffar told Prothom Alo that BNP did not take permission from them for any rally or procession. They organised the programme suddenly.

He further said the procession was allowed to go up to the Janata Bank intersection to protect the law and order situation.

Abdul Gaffar also claimed that the police did not force the BNP to cut short their rally.