BNP, AL get nod to hold rallies on 23 conditions

Staff Reporter :
Ruling Awami League and the main opposition BNP are to hold their pre-announced rallies in the capital Dhaka today ( Friday) as the police have finally given permission to both the parties in this regard
Dhaka Metropolitan Police on Thursday gave permission to both the Awami League and the BNP to hold their rallies scheduled for Friday at their preferred locations subjected to 23 conditions.

DMP has given permission to the BNP to hold the grand rally in front of its central office in the capital’s Nayapaltan.
Meanwhile, the Awami League has been permitted to hold its rally at the south gate of Baitul Mukarram National Masjid.

“We have given permission both the party to hold their political programme with 23 conditions,” Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Khandoker Golam Faruq told the media on Thursday.
The DMP gave the nod a day after both the parties were denied permission by the police administration to hold the rallies at their preferred locations.
As per the DMP’s conditions, BNP men cannot gather outside the peripheries of the Rajarbagh Police Hospital intersection to Nightingale intersection, and the Awami League has to restrict their gathering within Maulana Bhashani National Hockey Stadium to zero point.

Among other conditions included, limiting the rally within the venue, deploying adequate volunteers, installing CCTV cameras and metal detectors for checking participants while holding the rally, no loudspeakers and projectors can be set up outside the venues, no gathering on roads adjacent to the venue, any speech or display of any content or caricature that may hurt religious sentiment cannot be given or published and participants cannot carry objects like sticks, rods and bags.

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir announced a grand rally in Dhaka on July 27, following the party’s youth rally at the Suhrawardy Udyan on July 22.
On the other hand, three Awami League front bodies -Jubo League, Swechchhasebak League and Chhatra League announced their plan to hold a rally at the south gate of Baitul Mukarram on the same day following the BNP’s announcement.

After failing to get DMP’s nod the BNP on Wednesday, decided to defer their rally to Friday, and the three Awami League bodies also changed their rally date on the same day with the BNP.
Meanwhile, number of BNP activists were seen thronging the party headquarters in Nayapaltan after the DMP nodded to its request to hold its grand rally there.
Members of security forces in the area are trying to disperse them from the main road, which has resulted in many of the arriving political activists standing in the alleys, our correspondent reports from the spot.

On the other hand, BNP leaders alleged that police started mass arresting against their party men. But the DMP Commissioner Khandoker Golam Faruq informed the media that he has no idea about such actions.

The DMP chief also assured that appropriate actions will be taken if any involvement of DMP officials in such arrests is found.
However, he admitted that individuals accused in various cases are being arrested as part of their routine duties.