Leaders and activists of Chittagong BNP unit were engaged into a brawl on Thursday in presence of two top leaders during a function celebrating the ‘birthday’ of party Chairperson Khaleda Zia.
At one point of the scuffle, Chittagong metropolitan unit President Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury left the party office when a homemade bomb exploded on the street in front of the building.
The incident took place around 11:15am Thursday at Nasiman Bhaban, witnesses said.
Amir Khasru stopped activists from raising slogans during his speech. Supporters of General Secretary Shahadat Hossain got into an argument with Khasru’s supporters at that time, leading to the brawl.
Kotwali Police Station Inspector (Investigation) Nejam Uddin told bdnews24.com that a homemade bomb exploded on the street in front of BNP office during the fight.
Police also recovered another unexploded bomb from the street.
Nejam Uddin said some people had tried set Shahadat Hossain’s car on fire during the brawl.
Khasru left Nasiman Bhaban around 11:30am amid the scuffle while Shahadat left fifteen minutes later along with supporters.
Shahadat told reporters, “After the cake was cut, I saw my car was on fire. There might be some people of Awami League in our party. Those who had set our party office on fire earlier, were behind today’s incident.”
They were trying to find out the ‘perpetrators’, he added.
Asked whether there was any internal feud, the BNP Chittagong Metropolitan unit General Secretary said there were no misunderstandings in the party. “But we have a competition among us.”
The distance between Khasru and Shahadat surfaced after the executive committee of Chittagong metropolitan Chhatra Dal was announced last month. Chhatra Dal activists who did not get into the committee set fire to the party office on July 24 .
Supporters of two groups have already clashed several times until now.
Interestingly, two factions of Awami League’s youth Front Yuba League also clashed in Chittagong recently over a railway tender.
In the ensuing shootout, two were killed when caught in the crossfire.
Source: Bd news24
