Staff Reporter :
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Tuesday announced a two-day sit-in programme across the country on Wednesday and Thursday.
The sit- in programme will be held for the trial of deposed dictator Hasina and her accomplices for carrying out genocide against the agitators during the recent student-led anti-discrimination movement.
The programme will be held in front of all BNP offices across the country, said a BNP press release signed by party senior joint general secretary Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.
“BNP will hold sit-in programmes Wednesday and Thursday in front of our party offices across the country to demand the trial of fascist and killer Hasina and her accomplices for committing genocide during the recent student-led anti-discrimination movement,” the press release read.
Besides, the party will arrange doa and milad mahfils at BNP offices all over the country on Friday, marking the birthday of their party Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia.
Rizvi in the press release said the milad mahfils will be held for holding prayers for the long life of Khaleda Zia and the salvation of the departed souls of those students and mass people who embraced martyrdom during the recent movement.
He called upon the leaders and workers of all levels of BNP and its associate bodies to spontaneously participate in these programmes.
Apart from these, the party on Tuesday submitted a letter to the United Nations for an international investigation into the “genocide” committed by the ousted Sheikh Hasina government during the student-led mass agitation.
BNP Standing Committee Member Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury handed over the letter to the UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh, Gwyn Lewis, at her Gulshan office.
Later, talking to journalists, Amir Khosru Mahmud said, “BNP requested the UN to unearth the full coverage of the incidents of the massacre and killings perpetrated against Bangladeshi citizens under the ‘illegal’ Awami League government through an impartial and transparent investigation that adheres to international standards.”
Khosru said the letter would be forwarded to the UN headquarters from the UN Resident Coordinator’s office.
The BNP leader emphasized the necessity of exposing the unprecedented murders and incidents of enforced disappearances that occurred under the deposed dictator Hasina.
“It is crucial to bring to light the massacres carried out with government backing and to reveal these incidents to both the citizens of our country and the global community in a bid to free the nation from the stigma,” he said.
“We need to do it so that no one in Bangladesh dares to kill their own citizens and cling to power forcefully in the future,” Amir Khosru said.
Khosru said they called for a thorough, impartial and acceptable investigation by the UN also to free the nation from the stigma.
He said their party also urged the interim government to tell the United Nations to conduct the investigation as per the desire of the nation.
Replying to a query over this investigation, Khosru said, “The investigation will be on genocide.
The fact that the genocide took place under the direct patronage of a government requires an impartial and transparent investigation with international principles.”