Govt playing old game again to clear field before next polls: BNP

Staff Reporter :
The government staged the Panchagarh clash to arrest the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leaders and activists ahead of the national polls.
Though the national elections are still 8-9 months away, the Awami League (AL) led government wants to remove
BNP from the political field before the polls as they arrested 21 BNP candidates before the last 2018 parliamentary polls.
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said this while briefing journalists at the party chairperson’s office in the city’s Gulshan area on Monday.
“This time we too apprehend like the previous arrest before the polls in 2018 as AL is playing its old game of filing false cases and arresting leaders again to make BNP devoid of leadership ahead of the parliamentary polls,” he said.
Fakhrul said the government has now taken a project to make the election field empty by giving false and ghost cases against BNP leaders and activists.
Referring to the Panchagarh incident, he said, “This is not an isolated incident and it was an arranged event. BNP men are being accused and their houses are being raided by setting up such incidents.”
“It won’t be possible this time as the country’s people and BNP have taken to the streets. The government will be overthrown through a mass uprising,” he warned.
He said, for example 100 BNP leaders and activists are being named in “false and ghost” cases while accusing 1,000-1,500 unidentified others.
As a result, whenever a BNP leader or activist walks out of jail securing bail they get arrested in another case.
He referred to BNP’s Voluntary Affairs Secretary Mir Sarafat Ali Sapu who was rearrested at the jail gate when he was walking out of the prison on bail.
“The old game is here again. There is a business of making money centering the cases. In fact, the process has become a repressive one and the country has become a police state,” the BNP leader observed.
Fakhrul also expressed concern about many BNP leaders, including Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, who has been going through inhumane torture in jail.
He claimed that Rizvi fell seriously ill in Keraniganj Jail being subjected to “political vengeance.”
The BNP secretary general alleged that the government and the jail authorities are not taking steps to ensure proper treatment of Rizvi, who has been suffering from various diseases including diabetes, high blood pressure, lung complications, and heart disease.
Fakhrul noted that Rizvi cannot walk without the help of others or climb stairs alone as he was shot in the chest and legs during the anti-Ershad movement.
” Rizvi needs a stick to move. In such a situation, he is being made to stand in a prison van [which does not have seats] while being transported from Keraniganj prison to the court in Old Dhaka, which is a long way. He is brought to court almost every day in such a condition. This is a violation of human rights. It is a reflection of the will of the ruling party,” he observed.