The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party has formed a five-member committee to investigate the recent attack on a procession of the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Oikya Parishad in Cumilla ahead of Durga Puja.
The committee has been asked to submit its report within the next seven days.
The members of the BNP standing committee, the highest policymaking body of the party, formed the probe committee at their virtual meeting on Monday, said a party press release signed by its secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Tuesday.
The members of the committee are party vice-chairmen Barkat Ullah Bulu, advocate Nitai Roy Chowdhury, chairperson’s advisory council member Bijan Kanti Sarkar, legal affairs secretary barrister Kaiser Kamal and Supreme Court Bar Association’s former secretary Ruhul Quddus Kajal.
On October 13, at least seven people were injured in an attack reportedly by the Bangladesh Chhatra League and Juba League during a protest march of the Hindu Buddhist Christian Oikya Parishad in Cumilla city.
Fakhrul said that the BNP standing committee meeting strongly condemned and protested the attack on the Hindu Buddhist Christian Oikya Parishad in Cumilla ahead of Durga Puja.
“The Standing Committee feels that the government is perpetrating such attacks on the religious minority community to make their nefarious political gains by shifting the blame onto the opposition parties, including the BNP,” he said.
The BNP leader said that their meeting urged all concerned to remain alert to prevent such attacks on the minority community.
Fakhrul said the BNP standing committee also protested and denounced the arrest of party Publicity Secretary Shahid Uddin Chowdhury Annie late at night breaking the door of his Dhanmondi house and subsequent repression on him in custody.
He said that their meeting discussed that at least 24 leaders of the party’s national executive committee had been arrested while 96 party leaders and activists have been sentenced and many others were implicated in false cases across the country in the past six months.
The BNP policymakers demanded the immediate release of all arrested and jailed leaders and activists, including Annie, he said.
New Age
