Bangladesh Nationalist Party holds a condolence meeting in memory of the Holey Artisan Bakery victims at Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh on Tuesday.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s senior leaders on Tuesday urged the government to respond to the call of its chairperson Khaleda Zia to forge unity against extremism.
They said if the government did not respond to the call, BNP would carry out movement against ‘militancy’ and ‘extremism’, and for restoration of democracy.
BNP leaders came up with the statements while addressing a mourning meeting at Institution of Engineers’, Bangladesh in the capital.
The party’s Dhaka city unit organised it as part of BNP’s countrywide programme to observe Mourning Day in memory of local and foreign nationals who were killed in an attack of extremists at Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan on July 1.
On July 3, BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia at a news conference called for forging ‘anti-terrorism’ unity irrespective of party and opinion sinking political division to build up a safe, peaceful and democratic Bangladesh.
The leaders of the ruling Awami League-led alliance did not welcome her call rather branded Khaleda Zia as an ‘agent of Pakistan’ and blamed her for ‘making extremists topple the incumbent government and using them for carrying out subversive activities’.
They also asked BNP to sever tie with its key ally Jamaat-e-Islami to forge national unity.
Addressing the day’s mourning meeting, BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir urged the ruling party to sit in discussion responding to Khaleda’s call for forging national unity to defeat dangerous ‘monster’ and at the same time take step to return back people’s voting rights.
He said like independence war in 1971 there would have to fight against the monster irrespective of party opinion and religion.
Democracy and people would be the key weapons in the fight against the militancy and extremism, he said.
Fakhrul came down hard on the government for taking the issue (militancy and extremism) lightly.
He said it is not a local problem but there is a link with international militancy.
He said the government wanted to hush up the real incident by blaming BNP.
BNP standing committee member Moudud Ahmed said BNP is the most popular political party and forging any national unity is not possible without it.
He said the government would have to accept this reality and as soon as it would accept there would be good for the country.
He said BNP would be the real strength of the government.
Moudud, former law minister, said there is no benefit to blame BNP rather it would encourage and reorganise the militants to stage more such incidents (Gulshan restaurant attack) in future.
He said militancy and extremism are now going to take a dangerous shape as they have no politics.
He said militancy and extremism could not be curbed by police, Rapid Action Battalion and even by army as long as people would face it unitedly.
He asked the government to stop politics of blame game.
The mourning meeting adopted a resolution of condolence.
Presided over by city BNP convenor Mirza Abbas, the function was also addressed, among others, by the party leaders Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, Abdullah Al Noman, Selima Rahman and Ahmed Azam Khan.
Source: New Age
