Govt trying to unleash violence to blame BNP, alleges Fakhrul

Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir. — File photo.

Bangladesh desk: Voicing deep concerns over the crude bomb explosions in the capital ahead of the party’s public rally on Wednesday, the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Tuesday alleged that the government was trying to unleash violence in the country to blame the opposition party.

‘They (govt) are trying again to push the entire country and the nation towards violence deliberately through provocations, he said.

Speaking at a training programme for the female leaders and workers of BNP, Fakhrul said that some media outlets reported about the crude bomb explosions in the city’s Moghbazar area on Monday night. ‘It is a very deliberate and conspiratorial move by those who want to destroy the democracy in Bangladesh and to malign and blame the opposition parties.’

He alleged that the government carried out the incident through its various agencies to give the impression that BNP was behind it.

He warned that the government would have to shoulder all the responsibilities for taking the country towards violence with its provocative acts and programmes.

Fakhrul called upon the government to back off from these terrible efforts to destabilise the country and work for creating a truly democratic state system in the country by accepting the opposition’s demand for holding an acceptable national election under a neutral administration.

The BNP’s ‘Training Cell’ arranged the day-long training workshop for women representatives of the party in collaboration with United States-based ‘Democracy International (DI)’ at party the chairperson’s office in Gulshan.

Fakhrul said that the government had recently been saying that they do not obstruct the political parties from doing their political activities. ‘It’s a complete lie and fraudulence.’

‘Awami League has a characteristic problem that they do not believe in democracy. They choose dictatorship and feudalism. They have a mindset that there‘s no one else in the country except them and they’re the only owners of the country,’ he said

The BNP leader said that it was unfortunate for the nation that there was no democracy in the country while the democratic space for the political parties has been destroyed.

He questioned whether there was any democratic party in the world except BNP, whose four million leaders and activists were facing false political cases and the chief of the party has been convicted on false charges and all the senior leaders of the party are facing false cases on fake charges.

Citing a newspaper report, Fakhrul alleged that the government is trying to speed up the trial in the cases filed against him and their party chief Khaleda Zia. ‘They’ve instructed the police authorities and even the Law Ministry issued a letter to the judges to speed up the trial and dispose of the cases (against opposition leaders and activists)…the rulers are doing this as they don’t believe in democracy. They want to hang onto power and they don’t respect and count the other political parties.’

Fakhrul said that they had been carrying out a movement for the restoration of democracy in a democratic manner as the usurper government held two elections completely deceiving people by force.

‘Competitive elections are the key elements to uphold the democratic practice…but the rulers in this country talk about democracy, but they never practice it,’ he said.

The BNP leader said that there were now many discussions about the frequent trips of delegations from different countries to Bangladesh.

‘An American delegation is coming today (Tuesday) while a team of EU has already arrived here to know about human rights democracy and elections here. Why do they come to Bangladesh? Because there’s no democracy here and there’re no (credible) elections and elections are not held (fairly) here,’ Fakhrul observed.

He said that a level-playing field having equal opportunity for all political parties was necessary for a good election, but it was not possible to ensure when the government tries to suppress opposition leaders and activists by arresting, jailing, killing, and implicating them in false cases and when it tries to prevent the opposition from function and holding their programmes by using the state machinery.