3,300 BNP leaders, activists sued in three cases

Staff Reporter :
Police filed three cases with Paltan, Matijheel and Shahjahanpur police stations accusing more than 3,300 leaders and activists of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) mentioning 550 names, over Wednesday’s clash between the police and BNP activists in front of the party central office at Nayapaltan in Dhaka.
The cases were lodged for several charges including hindering the police from observing their duties, destroying government properties and attacking the police while discharging duties, police officials said.
‘Police arrested around 500 people in the three cases and sent them to court for taking legal steps,’ Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s deputy commissioner Faruk Hossain said.
He said the case with Paltan Police Station was lodged naming 470 people and unnamed 2,500 other ones , the case with Shahjahanpur Police Station was lodged naming 52 people and 250 unnamed ones and the case with Matijheel Police Station was lodged naming 28 people and several other ones.
The police officer said that their drives were going on to nab the accused people.
He said that they would seek the court’s permission to take several arrested accused under their custody for interrogation in the cases.
Meanwhile, the pro-BNP lawyers staged demonstration at the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court premises in the afternoon when a number of prison vans loaded with arrested BNP leaders and activists arrived there.
The protesters chanted slogans demanding immediate release of the BNP leaders and activists and protested against government oppression on the opposition leaders and activists.
The agitators said that the government had used the police to attack the BNP leaders and activists to foil the Dhaka divisional rally of the BNP, scheduled to be held on December 10.
Following the clashes that lasted more than three hours on Wednesday afternoon, at least 20 persons were brought to Dhaka Medical College Hospital till 8pm, according to Bachchu Mia, a police inspector and also in-charge of Dhaka Medical College Hospital police outpost. “Doctors pronounced one of them, 30-year-old Mokbul Hossain, dead,” he said, adding that the body bore multiple pellet injuries.
Talking to reporters in front of the party headquarters in the evening, however, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir claimed that two BNP men died in the clashes and at least 100 party men got injured. As the top BNP leader was talking to journalists, police cordoned off the Nayapaltan BNP office, where the party plans to hold the political gathering after a series of divisional rallies across the country.
Dozens of BNP leaders and activists, including the party’s Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, Publicity Secretary Shahid Uddin Chowdhury Annie, former Chhatra Dal president Abdul Kader Bhuiyan Jewel and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s Special Assistant Shamsur Rahman Shimul Biswas, were among those detained from the scene on Wednesday.
BNP activists started to gather at Nayapaltan on Wednesday noon to make enquiries about the political programme, said BNP leaders, as the venue of the rally was yet to be finalised by the authorities.
A large number of police personnel were deployed on nearby roads. According to witnesses, the gathering at one point blocked the road as police asked them to leave. As they did not do so, police fired tear shells and blank shots to try and disperse the crowd around 3pm. The BNP men retaliated by throwing bricks at the policemen.