Nahid seeks president’s arrest, impeachment

Staff Reporter :

Md Nahid Islam, convener of the National Citizens Party (NCP) and opposition chief whip, has demanded the impeachment and subsequent arrest of the president for allegedly failing to take effective measures to prevent the July killings.

He made the remarks on Wednesday (February 25) afternoon after visiting the graves of the victims of the Pilkhana massacre at Banani Military Cemetery.

Nahid Islam said one of the key tasks of the new parliament’s first session should be to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president. He called on both treasury and opposition benches to work together on the matter, saying there is national unity against fascism and that no division should exist on this issue.

He alleged that the president could not be removed earlier due to a lack of political consensus at the time.

According to him, demands for the president’s removal had been raised by the public since the tenure of the interim government. However, the president was retained in office then in the interest of state stability and constitutional continuity.

“With a new government now in charge, it is only a matter of time before the president resigns. We are waiting for that moment,” he said.

Nahid further claimed that during the July killings, the president failed to act as the guardian of the state and instead remained silent and inactive. He added that representatives of the anti-discrimination student movement had visited the president’s official residence, Bangabhaban, with demands for quota reform, but alleged that his inaction contributed to the violence.

He accused the president of bearing responsibility for the killings and said the time has come to impeach him, remove him from office, and file a case leading to his swift arrest.