The BNP has threatened to hit the country with shutdowns if all cases against its Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman were not withdrawn.
“We want to make it clear that there is no reason to think that tomorrow’s shutdown will be our last if all the false cases filed against him aren’t withdrawn immediately and the spreading of false propaganda is stopped,” BNP leader Shamsuzzaman Dudu said on Tuesday afternoon.
Dudu, an Advisor to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, was speaking at a press conference at BNP headquarters in the city’s Naya Paltan in the afternoon ahead of the Wednesday’s countrywide daylong general strike called to demand withdrawal of all cases against Tarique – the eldest son of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia.
A Dhaka court last Sunday issued a warrant of arrest for Tarique over a money-laundering case, saying Interpol will be asked to execute it and haul the BNP leader from London, where he now resides.
BNP lambasted the court order as ‘politically motivated’ since the warrant came in the wake of the government ministers’ criticism of Tarique, after he recently appealed to all non-resident Bangladeshis to play their part to pile pressure on the government to agree to a caretaker government before the general elections.
For the first time in five years, Tarique attended a meeting with party leaders in an East London hotel on May 20, although, according to BNP leaders, he had attended several closed-door party meetings.
Tarique left for London on Sep 11, 2008 after he was granted bail following his arrest during the state of emergency in 2007.
Accused in at least a dozen graft and criminal cases, he has not returned to the country ever since. Tarique was elected to the party’s second highest position while still in London.
Dudu said on Tuesday, “We’ve always been saying that Tarique Rahman has been in London taking permission from the court to receive treatment there. He will return home after treatment. But the government and its ministers are running falsehood and propaganda against him.”
Dudu referred to Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini, Cambodian leader Norodom Sihanouk, Philippines leader Benigno Aquino, Tibetan leader Dalai Lama, Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto getting political asylum in foreign countries to say that Tarique would also return home.
Dudu was asked whether their ongoing movement for restoration of the non-party caretaker government system was being hampered due to the movement centering the demand for withdrawal of all cases against Tarique.
“It’s only natural that the party leaders and activists will stage agitation for the party’s most popular leader. But we’ve not moved away from our main demand for the caretaker government because of this movement,.”
Dudu also demanded release of detained BNP Standing Committee Member MK Anwar and other supporters.
He blamed the government for crude bomb explosions in in the cpital on Tuesday, claiming ‘neither the BNP nor any associate organisation of the BNP is involved in the explosions”.
He said the government should arrest those involved with the subversive activities. “Otherwise, we’ll think that the government has links to these. We think that there has been the government instigation behind the violence.”
Source: Bd news24