BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir addresses a press conference organised on behalf of the BNP-led 20-party alliance at BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office in Dhaka on Saturday. — New Age photo
Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said that a ‘civilised’ government dealing with the Rohingya crisis would have convened an emergency meeting involving all the political parties.
Fakhrul, addressing a news briefing of the BNP-led alliance at BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office in Dhaka, reiterated that forming a national unity was required to tackle the Rohingya issue.
The government has failed to properly deal with the Rohingya issue, he said, adding, ‘You [Awami League] have divided the nation. You are treating BNP and its allies as your biggest enemy.’
The BNP secretary general came down hard on the government for not allowing his party to distribute relief among the Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar.
Fakhrul asked the government to find out MM Aminur Rahman, secretary general of Bangladesh Kalyan Party, a component of the alliance, and return him to his family.
Aminur went missing on August 27 night while he was on the way home at Aminbazar of Savar on the outskirts of Dhaka from Nayapaltan in the capital.
Referring to a number of people who went missing or faced enforced disappearance recently, Fakhrul asked if the country was turning into a ’security state’ or had already turned into one.
He said that such incidents of enforced disappearance had not happened during the Pakistan period or even during the autocratic regime of HM Ershad. Fakhrul said that the phenomenon of enforced disappearance had started and spread across the country during the Awami League regime.
He warned the government against using state organs to betray and deceive the people in such ways.
Fakhrul said that it was the first time a top leader of the alliance being subjected to enforced disappearance. ‘This has been done to scare and silence the alliance leaders,’ Fakhrul said.
When asked why the alliance had not taken any protest programme about Aminur going missing, Fakhrul said that the government had not allowed them to hold any meeting and rally.
Kalyan Party chairman Syed Muhammad Ibrahim urged the government to trace Aminur and return him to the party and his family.
Source: New Age