Over 500 held ahead of BNP grand rally: Mirza Abbas
Staff Reporter :
BNP Standing Committee Member Mirza Abbas on Thursday blasted the police for arresting more than 500 party men ahead of their grand rally in Dhaka tomorrow (Friday).
“Different units of Dhaka Metropolitan Police arrested more than 500 leaders and activists of our party from different places of the capital city during overnight raids until Thursday early morning,” he said at a press briefing at the Nayapaltan central office of the party in the afternoon.
The BNP leader also alleged that the police have started arresting the party’s leaders and activists across the country to create panic ahead of the grand rally.
Mirza Abbas urged the police to release the
arrested party men immediately and stopped the arrest spree against them.
He called upon the police to help the party hold its grand rally peacefully and not to create obstacles to the BNP men joining the programme on Friday.
Earlier on the day, BNP Senior Joint-Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi from a separate press briefing also made the similar allegations of detaining huge leaders and activists of the party.
The leaders strongly condemn such police actions ‘against freedom of assembly as part of democratic practice’ ahead of the upcoming elections.
Both the leaders said that the police arrested Mir Ashraf Ali, a former commissioner of Ward No. 26, Dhaka City Corporation, and his son, Barrister Muntaha Ali, on Wednesday night from their house. Mir Ashraf Ali was seriously injured during the arrest, including broken legs.
‘In addition, Shafiqul Haque Milan, a lawyer and the relief and rehabilitation affairs secretary of BNP central committee, Abdul Quddus Akon, assistant-organizing secretary of BNP, and Anwar Hossain Ujjal, former general secretary of Rajshahi metropolitan BNP along with approximately two hundred leaders and activists who came to Dhaka to attend the BNP’s grand rally, which will be held in Dhaka on July 28, 2023, were also arrested on 26 July night in the capital by the various police units,’ Rizvi said.
“Besides, the police also raided the Midway Hotel and the Victoria Hotel next to the BNP central office near Naya Paltan. They arrested more than 300 leaders and activists who boarded there to attend the grand rally.”
Meanwhile, a deputy commissioner of DB on Thursday claimed that they had raided Hotel Midway near BNP central office at Naya Paltan on ‘ specific information’ and detained more than 50 people from the hotel on allegation of sabotage.
On the other hand, BNP leaders alleged that police have searching people in different areas of Dhaka.
“The police even are stopping rickshaws and taxis and used to search the people and check their mobile phone calls,” they said.
Police obstruct medical treatment to injured BNP men: DAB: Doctors Association of Bangladesh (DAB) on Thursday alleged that police barred them from giving medical treatment to injured party men in different areas in the country including the capital city.
“The police are obstructing our efforts for giving medical services to the party men who were injured by attacks from the ruling party men or by the law enforcers,” Dr. Mehedi Hasan, Joint-Secretary of DAB, told it at a press briefing in its Moghbazar office in the capital.
