The government is ‘plotting’ to clamp a state of emergency, BNP leader Abdullah Al Noman has claimed.
He also held the government responsible for the violence during the Opposition’s blockade across Bangladesh.
The BNP Vice-Chairman’s remarks came at a rally in Chittagong on Tuesday, the fourth day of the 131-hour blockade.
He ccused the government of trying to “annihilate the BNP politically through repression and torture”.
“It’s conspiring to declare a state of emergency in the country by committing planned murders, terrorism and bomb attacks,” he said.
A state of emergency was declared in 2007 during a political unrest over the national election. The BNP was in power while the Awami League was the main opposition at the time.
The two major political parties are yet again at loggerheads after seven years over the same cause. But the table has turned this time with the Awami League in power and BNP being the main opposition.
The BNP-led 18-Party alliance has been continuously toughening its agitation by calling general strikes to push for a non-party polls-time government and enforcing nationwide blockades rejecting the schedule for the parliamentary polls.
Nearly 40 people have been killed in the recent violence during the Opposition programmes across Bangladesh.
With the two parties yet to reach an agreement over the polls-time dispensation, the Awami League has constituted an ‘all-party’ interim cabinet. It also had called the Opposition to join the cabinet.
The BNP and its allies, however, refused, calling it ‘just another farce of the government’.
Noman on Tuesday said, “Our movement is not limited to the demand of a non-party government anymore. It has become a movement to protect the country, democracy and voting rights.”
“This movement to save the country will continue until we achieve final victory,” he added.
The rally he was addressing was organised by the main opposition’s Chittagong unit in front of the party office in the port city.
Source: Bd news24
