The BNP has said it will enforce a dawn-to-dusk shutdown in Dhaka district on Mar 21 if their leaders, arrested from the party’s Naya Paltan headquarters on Monday, are not released by then.
District BNP President Abdul Mannan threatened the shutdown at a press briefing at the party headquarters on Wednesday.
If BNP Joint General Secretaries Aman Ullah Aman and Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, Opposition Chief Whip Zainul Abdin Farroque and other leaders were not released unconditionally, the party would go ahead with the shutdown on Mar 21, he said.
Hearing on the remand and bail petitions relating to the two cases filed against the arrested leaders will take place on Mar 20.
On Monday, police raided the BNP headquarters and nabbed over 150 activists within hours of blasts at a rally of the 18-Party Alliance organised near the Naya Paltan office. At least seven top leaders were nabbed from the scene.
Police claimed they seized 10 crude bombs from inside the office.
On Tuesday, the Paltan police filed two cases against 154 named 18-Party Alliance activists and up to 50 anonymous others over the incident.
BNP Acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Vice President Sadeque Hossain Khoka and Altaf Hossain Chowdhury were released after 19 hours of detention. They were spared of the cases as well.
Police sought a total of 17 days’ remand to interrogate opposition Farroque, Aman and Mohammad Shahjahan, DAB General Secretary and BNP Chairperson’s Advisor Dr M Zahid Hossain and party’s Assistant Information and Research Affairs Secretary Habibur Rahman. They have been accused of instigating the violence.
Dhaka court sent them to jail and set the next hearing date for Mar 20
Source: Bd news24
