Govt determined to conduct thorough probe into violence: Arafat

The government is firmly committed to carrying out a thorough and transparent investigation into each and every incident took place during the quota reform movement and bringing all culprits to book, State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Mohammad Ali Arafat said today (30 July).

"We have already formed an independent judicial committee to conduct a thorough investigation into each incident and bring the perpetrators to book," he told in an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW).

Replying to a query over the parties involved in the conflict, Arafat said, "Still the global media is stuck into an equation which is the binary one and government versus student protesters. But that's not the case at all. There was a third-party engagement to this end."

"Third party means BNP, Jamaat and Shibir, Islamic radicals... they actually carried out the destruction and violence," he said, adding it's very unfortunate that some people got stuck in the situation leading to the casualties.

Referring to the incident of July 18 following the students protest, Arafat said there was no quota system in the civil service recruitment as the Supreme Court asked for status quo on the issue making High Court verdict inoperative.

He said it is not true that over 200 students were killed in the incident. According to government accounts, the total figure is 150, said the state minister.

"Out of 150, there were many people who were burnt down by the anarchists and attackers, and we could not even identify their identities," he said, adding that there were also many ruling party men among the victims.
 
The state minister said the government is striving with utmost commitment to protect peace and the lives of the people. It became the duty of the government to take action to protect lives and restore peace when militant groups infiltrated into the students' protest, he added.

He pointed out that the miscreants stormed into jail and forced some 826 prisoners including nine high level jihadists to flee the prison, looted firearms and ammunitions.

The militants damaged 235 police facilities, destroyed 69 police outposts and killed many police officers and hanged police personnel on bridges, Arafat added.

About 1,117 police members were injured and 132 of them are in critical condition, the state minister said, adding that they attacked the metro-rail stations, BTV Bhaban and all of the key point installations (KIPs).

"We saw a clear handwriting instruction of BNP, Jamaat and Islamic radicals to conduct the attack," Arafat said.

Noting that the leaders of the student protesters also denounced all these destructions and violence, he said they claimed that they were abused by the third party.

Some of the students lost their friends and they believed their friends were killed by some of the anarchists to create some tensions in the society and eventually to topple the government, Arafat said.

Arafat asserted that third party intrusion into the movement led to many unfortunate incidents.