BNP to enforce hartal Tuesday; also on April 8-9 if demands go unheeded

News - BNP to enforce hartal Tuesday; also on April 8-9 if demands go unheeded
 Opposition BNP on Thursday night decided to enforce fresh hartals on Tuesday and April 8-9 to press home their various demands, including the release of the opposition leaders and activists and restoration of the caretaker government system.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the party’s senior leaders with Khaleda Zia in the chair at her Gulshan office, party sources said.

However, the BNP chief will finalise the decisions taken at the parley after a meeting with senior leaders of the 18-party opposition alliance by March 31.

The nearly one-and-a-half-hour meeting that began around 9:40pm also decided that the BNP-led 18-party will hold a grand rally in the capital on April 15.

Besides, Khaleda Zia will visit the recent violence-hit Satkhira district on April 3 and 4 to console those killed in police firing.

Meeting sources said the 18-party will enforce hartal on Tuesday with an ultimatum that they will again go for shutdown on April 8-9 if the government does not release its all leaders and activists by April 7.

The meeting also elaborately discussed the outcomes of the ongoing movement, Khaleda’s visits to different districts and the country’s latest political situation.

BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, standing committee members Dr RA Gani, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Lt Gen (retd) Mahbubur Rahman, MK Anwar, Barrister Rafiqul Islam Miah, Mirza Abbas, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, Dr Moyeen Khan, vice chairman Sadeque Hossain Khoka, Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, Abdullah Al Noman, Selima Rahman, joint secretary general Salahuddin Ahmed and top leaders of the party’s associate bodies attended the meeting.

Meanwhile, the BNP-led 18-party alliance enforced 72 hours of hartal in two spells demanding the release of its leaders and activists arrested from BNP’s Nayaplatan central office on March 11.

Its second spell of 36-hour hartal ended at 6pm on Thursday.

Earlier, the opposition alliance enforced another 36-hour shutdown from 6am on March 18 as the government did not release the opposition leaders and activists by their March-14 deadline.

On March 11, police in a raid on BNP’s Nayapaltan central office arrested 157 of its leaders and workers, including acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.

The law enforcers launched the drive in the BNP office after 8-10 crude bombs went off near the BNP central office while Fakhrul was addressing a rally.

Three of the arrested leaders — Mirza Fakhrul, Sadek Hossain Khoka and Altaf Hossain Chowdhury — were released the following day.

On March 20, two courts in Dhaka placed 154 leaders of the opposition alliance on an eight-day police remand in the two cases filed with the city’s Paltna Police Station.

Police on Sunday submitted a charge-sheet against 148 of them dropping the names of six BNP men in a case filed with Paltan Police Station under the Speedy Trial Act.

A Dhaka court on Monday accepted charges against the 148 leaders and activists of the BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance.

BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia addressing separate rallies in Bogra during her recent visit threatened to cripple the country to force this regime to quit.

She also asked people to get ready to spontaneously implement the harsher programmes to be announced by the alliance to oust the government.

Source: UNB Connect