The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Sunday staged demonstrations, amid police obstructions, across the country in protest at 'repression' and 'vendetta' against the Zia family that include conviction of Khaleda's youngest son Arafat Rahman.
The party also observed the day as 'day against repression' coinciding the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
The party announced to hold the protests soon after Dhaka's third special judge's court had sentenced Arafat Rahman to six years in jail and fined him Tk 190.41 million in a money laundering case.
'Rallies and processions were held in divisional and district headquarters as part of the observance of the day and in protest at the government move to ruin the Zia Family,' the BNP's joint secretary Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told New Age.
He said that the police had foiled rallies and processions at different places in the country.
The Dhaka city BNP as part of the nationwide programme held a rally in front of the party's central office at Naya Paltan.
The mayor of Dhaka, Sadeque Hossain, presided over the rally and the party's standing committee members Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain and Rafiqul Islam Mia, acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, vice-chairman Abdullah Al Noman and the party's chairperson's advisers Shamsuzzaman Dudu, Ahmed Azam Khan and Fazlur Rahman Patal, among others, spoke.
Mosharraf Hossain, who spoke as chief guest at the rally, asked the government to stop playing the 'dangerous game centring on the caretaker government provision.'
'Stop playing any dangerous game centring on the caretaker government provision so that the country does not fall in any disaster,' Mosharraf told the government.
'Otherwise,' he said, 'you [the Awami League-led government] will be held responsible.'
Mrza Fakhrul earlier at a discussion at the National Press Club accused the government of creating smokescreen in the name of holding talks on the caretaker government provision.
Terming 'airy fairy' the call the Awami League's general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam put out for talks on the caretaker government issue, Fakhrul said that the government was trying to create smokescreen by holding talks on the issue.
'Syed Ashraf is saying that the talks will be held for certain. But nobody knows with whom the talks will be held and when. Neither the main opposition nor any other party knows anything about the talks,' Fakhrul said.
He criticised the government for placing the bill on amendment to the constitution in the parliament even before it received the court verdict.
New Age correspondents in districts such as Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal, Bogra, Munshiganj, Feni and Narsingdi said that the local BNP units had brought out processions and held rallies.
The correspondents in Chuadanga and Bhola said that the police had obstructed BNP processions in the districts.
Source : New Age
