Kalyanpur Raid Whether killed 9 people militants, doubts BNP

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Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) standing committee member ASM Hannan Shah on Tuesday doubted whether those killed in the ‘Operation Storm 26’ in the capital’s Kalyanpur are militants or innocent people.

“Police said they’ve killed nine militants in a drive at Kalyanpur. I’ve doubt whether the innocent people were killed in it…we’ve seen several hundred police were roaming the area during the Gulshan incident, but they didn’t face the 5-6 armed terrorists,” he said while addressing a discussion.

He further said, “When law enforcers say about encounter or gunfight, a question comes in public mind that whether the criminal or innocent people have got killed by them. There’re many such incidents took place at the behest of this regime.”

Awami National Party, one of the components of the BNP-led 20-party alliance, arranged the programme at the city’s Photojournalists Association auditorium, marking its 59th founding anniversary.

Earlier in the morning, nine suspected militants were killed and one suffered bullet wounds during an operation by a special team of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) in the city’s Kalyanpur area Tuesday.

Police claimed that the militants killed and injured during the Kalyanpur operation had a plan to carry out acts of sabotage like the Gulshan one as they belonged to the same extremist outfit that attacked Holey Artisan Bakery.

Hannan Shah, a BNP standing committee member, also alleged extremists with the help of some foreign countries are carrying out their activities to destabilise the country, harm its economy and demoralise people.

Another BNP standing committee member, Nazrul Islam Khan, alleged that the government itself is making the militancy issue alive to hide its failures and misdeeds.

“Our leader (Khaleda) has offered to work together to curb terrorism and militancy. We think it’s not possible to tackle terrorism and extremism by police and the administration without people’s involvement. But, the government is not willing to do that,” he told a discussion at the National Press Club arranged by Doctors’ Association of Bangladesh.

Mentioning that they have long been on a fight to establish a pro-people government through a free and fair election, the BNP leader said the government is creating various issues one after another to shift people’s focus to a different direction from their movement.

Speaking at the programme, party senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said there is no difference between the ideals of militants and the current government.

“The militants think the country will have to run as per their ideals while this regime wants to run the country as per their whims… we must now get rid of both the militants and the government,” he added.

Source: Prothom Alo