EC concedes to ruling bloc’s desire: BNP

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has alleged that the election commission (EC) has conceded to the desires of the ruling Awami League, instead of fulfilling the conditions for a free, fair, and inclusive election.

In a virtual press briefing on Friday, the party’s senior joint secretary, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, made the allegation and said in a sarcastic way that the commission should have made it clear in the election schedule whether the voting will take place in broad daylight or at the dead of night.

He also alleged that the police are carrying out an all-out crackdown against the opposition and are not even sparing the parents and siblings in cases of failure to find the targeted opposition men.

As an instance, Rizvi said the police arrested Shahidur Rahman Biswas recently as they failed to nab his sibling Shimul Biswas, special assistant to the BNP chairperson.

The BNP leader further claimed that the youth are particularly facing massive violence due to their pivotal role in the ongoing anti-government protests. The police, along with armed ruling party members, are breaking into the residences of BNP men and rampaging through villages.

In the Bera municipality of Pabna, loyalists of Bangladesh Chhatra League, the ruling party's student front, beat up an elderly man to death as they failed to reach his son Jahidul Islam, a posted activist of the BNP’s student wing, alleged Rizvi.

Meanwhile, Kamrul Hasan, assistant organising secretary of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal’s Sylhet district unit, was not granted bail even after his father's demise, he noted.

The BNP leader revealed that a total of 395 leaders and activists of BNP and its associate bodies have been arrested in the last 24 hours until Friday afternoon. At the same time, some eight cases have been recorded at different police stations, accusing over 1,065 BNP members.

Centering the 28 October grand rally, the police have so far arrested 12,900 BNP members and filed 289 cases, he added.