BNP men want hartal, but top leader for 'occupy the streets first'
BNP secretary general calls for turning the grief over a party man's death in Bhola by police firing into strength
At a rally in the capital to protest the killing of a leader in Bhola by police firing, BNP activists on Tuesday demanded the central leaders to announce hartal. But BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told them to "occupy the streets first".
The activists started to chant slogans "hartal, hartal" when Mirza Fakhrul was addressing the protest rally at the Jatiya Press Club. "You need to occupy the streets first," the BNP secretary general told them. Even after Fakhrul's speech was over, the BNP men continued to chant the "hartal" slogans.
Fakhrul said, "All wings of the BNP will stage protests on Thursday. After that, we will declare our next programmes."
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Calling upon the activists to take to the streets, the BNP leader said, "If you don't take to the streets, nothing will happen. Get ready, we must occupy the roads first. We will oust this government from power."
Fakhrul also said that they would not allow the government anymore to stay in power.
"You have to roar and occupy the roads. You have to establish the people's rights after toppling the government."
On Monday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina asked people to hand over lanterns to BNP leaders who have been protesting power outages across the country. In response to that, the BNP secretary general said, "Time has come for you to hold the lanterns, as you will not get time even to flee through the back door."
Citing the Sri Lanka collapse, Fakhrul said, "People don't let [the rulers] escape. In the last 15 years, Bangladesh has been turned into a forsaken land by the current government."
He said the death of Bhola BNP leader is not a new one, rather BNP has been watching such tragic scenes for the past 14 years.
BNP Standing Committee Member Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain said police opened fire in Bhola on agitating people to please a specific political party. "But the death has marked the beginning of the departure of the government."
Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, another standing committee member of BNP, claimed that the government is lying about inflation and said that Bangladesh inflation is at least 30%.
