BNP back to Nayapaltan on V Day
The party holds biggest-ever ‘showdown’ since 28 Oct, calls hartal for Monday
The BNP held its Victory Day rally at the capital's Nayapaltan on Saturday, demonstrating its largest-ever 'showdown' since the 28 October grand rally.
The opposition party, which is boycotting the upcoming national elections and demanding ouster of the government, brought out a procession at Fakirapul after the rally and marched towards Shantinagar.
Earlier on 10 December, marking International Human Rights Day, the party staged a human chain primarily to denounce the "mass arrests of its leaders and activists."
A large number of party leaders and activists joined the Victory Day rally held peacefully around its Nayapaltan central office, which has been locked since October 28.
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Also on Saturday, the BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami and other like-minded parties announced a dawn-to-dusk hartal for 18 December (Monday) to press home their demand for the resignation of the current government and the restoration of the caretaker administration to oversee the polls.
The hartal will be enforced from 6am on Monday, said BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi on Saturday.
The BNP-Jamaat announced the hartal even after a home ministry instruction to the returning officers to prevent political gatherings, rallies, and similar programmes from 18 December until the end of the 12th parliamentary election, slated for 7 January.
This will be the fourth time the BNP has declared hartal since 28 October. The party has also enforced blockades in 11 phases.
Sources within the BNP and Jamaat have said both parties are going to stage demonstrations simultaneously, reinforcing its ongoing anti-government movement.
15 coordination committees formed
The BNP and Jamaat have formed at least 15 zonal movement coordination committees across the country. Decision makers of both parties have held several meetings in this regard. Recently, the distance between the two parties has been bridged.
The incumbent leaders of both the parties have already reached a decision to hold the agitation programme together.
The BNP and Jamaat are set to announce a new platform called the "All-party Unity against Fascism" soon to bolster their ongoing movement. The platform will include other anti-government parties simultaneously involved in the ongoing movement.
According to the sources, all anti-government political programmes will be collectively organised under the umbrella of the new platform. Leaders and activists from the participating parties, spanning central to grassroots levels, will join these programmes together.
Thirty-nine political parties including the BNP are involved in the simultaneous anti-government movement, BNP sources claimed. As many as 64 registered and unregistered political parties have boycotted the 12th parliamentary elections under the Awami League government.
Approximately 1,200 leaders and activists of the BNP have been sentenced to various terms by the court in political cases filed long ago, with some even in 2013. Among the convicted are those who were the most active and prominent leaders of the party.
Since the violent clashes rocked downtown Dhaka on 28 October, about 21 leaders and activists of the party have been killed while protesting against the government and more than 20,000 have been arrested. Many top leaders, including its Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, of the party are now in jail.
