New Delhi: Anti-government protesters led by Bangladesh’s main opposition party, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), have begun gathering at the Golapbagh playground, near Sayedabad bus terminal in Dhaka, today, December 10 morning, amid continuing crackdown by the police, Dhaka Tribune reported.
The capital city of Bangladesh has been tense for the past few days with protest demonstrations by BNP activists demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina over soaring fuel prices and the rising cost of living. They have been exerting pressure on the Hasina government to call an early election while the next General Election in the country is scheduled for the end of next year.
There have been clashes between police and protesters in the run-up to the December 10 ‘Grand Rally’ in Dhaka. Despite police’s strictures, protestors have been gathering at the rally venue since morning on Saturday, December 10.
Meanwhile, all seven MPs of the BNP announced their resignation. Zahidur Rahman from Thakurgaon-3, Mosharof Hosen from Bogura-4, Aminul Islam from Chapainawabganj-2, reserved seat MP Rumeen Farhana, Harunur Rashid from Chapainawabganj-3, and Abdus Sattar Bhuiyan from Brahmanbaria-2 announced their resignation from the stage at the rally venue amid a huge cheer from the party workers in attendance. Another BNP MP Harunur Rashid, who is currently in Australia, said he had already signed his resignation letter, Bangladesh daily The Daily Star reported.
In a bid to foil the rally, the police arrested two top leaders of the BNP in pre-dawn arrests on Friday, December 9 morning. BNP’s secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and standing committee member Mirza Abbas were picked by the detective branch personnel from their homes in separate pre-dawn raids in the capital city.
According to PTI, Uttara police station’s officer in charge, Zahirul Islam, on the latest arrests said, “DB (detective branch) men arrested Mr. Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir from his Uttara (area) residence at about 3 am. There are some cases against (pending against) him.”
Without further elaborations, the official said Alamgir was taken to detective branch custody for subsequent legal procedures as former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s BNP is waging an anti-government campaign.
Two days prior to the latest round of arrests, one person was killed and scores others were wounded as police clashed with angry BNP activists in front of their central Naya Paltan office as they were preparing for the December 10 rally.
Police called the BNP’s Naya Paltan office a “crime scene” after claiming to have found Molotov cocktails at the location.
Global condemnation
Fifteen Western embassies issued a joint statement earlier this week calling upon the country to allow free expression, peaceful assembly and fair elections.
According to Reuters, the White House on Friday, December 9, called on the government of Bangladesh to fully investigate reports of violence against journalists and human rights activists ahead of a major political protest, and urged all parties to refrain from violence.
“We call on all parties in Bangladesh to respect the rule of law, to refrain from violence. We want to see them refrain from harassment, intimidation, and we call on the government to ensure that no party or candidate threatens, incites or conducts violence against any other party,” national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
The United States is concerned about the reports and is monitoring developments in Bangladesh “very, very closely,” Kirby added.
Row over rally venue
The BNP is in a row with the government over the site of their scheduled rally. The party alleged that some 2,000 of their activists were arrested in the past several days to scuttle the December 10 rally.
Several government leaders and police said they expected the dispute over the rally site to be subsided as the BNP was offered two alternative sites.
Ahead of the planned Dhaka rally, the BNP staged several peaceful public meetings in major cities across Bangladesh in the past weeks.
But the party alleged that the government tried to upset them by manipulating transport owners to call region-wise transport strikes to prevent its supporters from joining the rallies.
Despite being the main Opposition, the BNP remained outside parliament as they boycotted the 2014 and 2018 elections, claiming no election under the incumbent government will be fair or credible.
In the 2018 elections, the BNP suffered a miserable defeat by bagging only six seats in the 300-member Parliament and since then the party remained in a state of wilderness.
Political analysts said the BNP has rallied significant support but the party was in a dilapidated shape after its chairperson 77-year-old Zia convicted of two graft charges.
A court in 2017 sentenced her to a 17-year jail term and she spent months in prison.
Zia, a three-time premier, however, was allowed to stay at her home in Dhaka under a special government provision since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and debarred from joining any political activity.
The BNP has elected her expatriate elder son Tarique Rahman, also a convict of several criminal and graft charges, as its acting chairman. He now stays in London and oversees the party activities from abroad.
(With inputs from agencies)
Note: This copy was updated with the news of the resignation of Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s MPs at 2:25 PM on December 10 after it was first published at 12:15 PM on the same day.