Trashing speculations about widening discord among their alliance partners, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Sunday said there is no laxity among those carrying out the simultaneous movement against the current government.
“We would like to give you a clear idea that there’s no laxity among us and we did not lose the momentum,” he said.
Fakhrul made the remarks while talking to reporters at a press briefing at the BNP Chairperson’s Gulshan office after a meeting between the liaison committee members of BNP and Ganatantra Mancha.
Though BNP and its all alliance partners observed a two-hour sit-in programme in all cities and district towns on Saturday, Ganatantra Mancha refrained from holding the programme.
When a journalist drew this issue to Fakhrul’s attention,he said BNP’s progrrammes are observed across the country sometimes simultaneously and they have an understanding that every party can observe the programmes in their own way.
“But we have been carrying out the simultaneous movement agreeing on the main demands for the resignation of the government, dissolution of parliament, holding the election under the non-party caretaker government and the reforms of the state,” he said.
The BNP leader said they will clearly announce which are the programmes of their simultaneous movement and which are their party’s own programmes from now on.
He said the joint declaration of their movement will be mainly based on establishing a democratic and welfare state by ousting the current government.
Fakhrul alleged that many opposition leaders and activists were injured in different districts across the country, especially in Khulna and Natore in attacks by police and ruling party ‘cadres’ during their sit-in programme on Saturday.
He said many of the injured have been receiving treatment at different hospitals in critical conditions. “We strongly condemn the attacks and the authoritarian government’s repressive activities to suppress the current movement and dissents.”
The BNP leader alleged that the government has been attacking and killing journalists and arresting, repressing and jailing them in a planned way over the last 14 years to suppress public opinions and snatch press freedom. “They’re regulating the independence of the media, especially by using the Digital Security Act.”
He said their meeting condemned the arrest of Prothom Alao reporter Samsuzzaman Shams and the filing of cases against other journalists of the newspapers, including its editor Matiur Rahman, under the Digital Security ACT (DSA).
Fakhrul said the meeting demanded the withdrawal of the cases against journalists and the annulment of the DSA.
The BNP leader said their meeting also discussed the death of government employee Sultana Jasmine in Rapid Action Battalion custody in Rajshahi on March 24.
He said they talked about their next course of action of the ongoing simultaneous movement and they focused on making the relations with the partners of the movement stronger further to intensify the street agitation to establish a pro-people government by holding a credible election under a non-party caretaker government.
Rastra Sanskar Andolan’s chief coordinator and the coordinator of Ganatantra Mancha, Hasnat Quaiyum, said they also talked about the joint declaration of the simultaneous movement.
He said they hope they will soon be able to present the joint declaration very soon.
Hasnat said they also talked about how to intensify the current movement in unison in the days to come.
