BNP claims damages over Tk 50 lakh

Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has alleged that ruling party Awami League’s workers carried out ‘vandalism’ and then plundered during police raid on the BNP’s central office in Nayapaltan on December 7, just two days before their final divisional rally on December 10.
The value of the damaged and looted property would be about Tk 50,82,500.
BNP Standing Committee Member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said this during a press briefing held at the party’s chairperson’s political office in Gulshan on Sunday.
“Police on December 7 ignored the general law of holding the owner and neutral persons as witnesses while raiding an office or house. The ruthless and unkind treatment with the BNP men by the forces and people of the ruling party have not only unveiled its undemocratic, authoritarian and anti-people disposition but also dishonour to the month of victory,” he said.
Expressing strong condemnation and protest, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said, “We demand impartial investigation into the incident. At the same time, we are demanding the unconditional release of BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Standing Committee Member Mirza Abbas, Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi and other central and various level leaders of the party.”
BNP Standing Committee members Nazrul Islam Khan, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, Selima Rahman, Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku and others were present at the press conference.
He also said that the people’s movement to restore democracy could not be weakened by torture and unkindness.
The people of the country ignored the various obstacles of the ruling party and police force across the Dhaka division after December 7 made the divisional rally of December 10 successful, he added.
“BNP’s decision to defer the date of mass rally in Dhaka is not an act of inflexibility towards anyone. BNP is a moderate democratic political party. BNP has shown its democratic character while in power in the past as well and will show in the future too. We believe in freedom of expression,” Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said.
On 8 December night, authorities said BNP could reopen its Nayapaltan party office from 9 December morning, however, they didn’t allow anyone to enter the area until 11 December morning.
Some BNP leaders led by party organising secretary and acting secretary Syed Emran Saleh Prince went to its Nayapaltan office on 11 December at noon and entered the office with some lawyers and journalists around 1:15pm. Later, they inspected the whole office.
Talking to the reporters, BNP Office Secretary Imran Saleh Prince alleged that law enforcers vandalised the party’s head office in Nayapaltan in the name of conducting a drive.
“The police vandalised the furniture and valuables of the office. They also seized the office computers and other equipment,” he added.