Country a death valley for law, order collapse

The sharp rise in criminal activities such as killings, including extrajudicial ones and those of children; rapes, abductions and enforced disappearances resulted from the law and order's "complete" collapse, turning the country into a "death valley", said BNP yesterday.

Expressing grave concern over the killing of Prof AFM Rezaul Karim of Rajshahi University by two unidentified assailants in the city's Shalbagan area on April 23, BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Rizvi Ahmed said, "People's bodies are now found in canals, water bodies and ditches."

Addressing a press briefing at the party's Naya Paltan central office in the capital, he said the ruling party men also started carrying out countrywide "repressive and destructive activities" after the union parishad polls' third phase ended.

"They are attacking our leaders and activists and their houses...It seems that the main target of the voter-less illegal government is to hang onto power, irrespective of the direction the country is heading in and of the number of lives lost," he said.

He said the day was not far away when people would give a befitting reply to government and its "puppet" Election Commission for destroying the entire election system.

The government will be ousted soon as people at grassroots have started waking up to get back their voting rights, he observed, adding, "The misrule will end soon as the fall of this illegal government will be ensured."