The police personnel are not allowing resumption of activities at the BNP’s central office in Naya Paltan, which has been under lock and key for the past 83 days.
Members of Dhaka metropolitan police are taking turns in guarding the place. The government’s intelligence agency personnel have been deployed nearby. It is the same for the party’s Dhaka city office, situated in Bhasani Bhaban, the building opposite the head office.
Source in the BNP said most of the party leaders and activists are avoiding these two offices because of the police and intelligence agencies. And the police have placed both the offices under lock and key.
Dalil Uddin, a member of the central offices staff, went to the Paltan police station on Tuesday afternoon, wanting the door to be opened for Independence Day celebration on 26 March.
The office-in-charge (IC), however, refused, saying this could not be done without the permission of the higher authorities.
So, the national flag could not be hoisted from the office building on the Independence Day.
Dalil Uddin on Friday told Prothom Alo, “I went to the OC to get the office opened. He told me to go and talk to the DC. After I requested him, he spoke to the DC. The DC supposedly told him to contact the commissioner. The commissioner was supposedly busy. Nothing happened after that.”
The BNP office has been under lock and key since 3 January midnight. A little before that, a team of the detective branch (DB) police picked up the BNP’s joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi and took him to Apollo Hospital.
A few employees were still present in the office at the time. The DB police sent them all out of the office and left after placing a lock on the front door. The police have been deployed outside the office since then.
The OC of Paltan police station, Morshed Alam, however, told Prothom Alo, “It is their (BNP’s) office. It is up to them if they want to open their office or close it. What is it to us?”
He admitted that Dalil Uddin had come to him for the key. “I told him it is up to you to unlock the door or not,” the OC said. He said the police did not lock the door and they didn’t have the key.
Dalil Uddin, who is an elderly employee of the office, said, with the office closed, the offices water, electricity, gas and telephone bills have been piling up for three month. The 14 staff members of the office haven’t been receiving the salaries either. The party’s acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir signed their salary cheques but he is in jail. Other than two or three of the staff members, they rest have gone home to their villages.
When asked if the police will prevent the employees from opening the office, OC Morshed Alam said, “It’s their office. If they want to unlock it, why will we prevent them?”
BNP standing committee member Mahbubur Rahman said, “No matter what the government or the police may say, the people know very well who has locked the office. They know who took Rizvi away. It is extremely unfortunate and reprehensible that the police are not removing the lock and claiming they haven’t locked the office up. The consequences of locking up the office of such a big party in a democratic state will not be good.”
Source: Prothom Alo
