BNP condemns Cox's Bazar police firing
The main opposition BNP yesterday strongly condemned "indiscriminate firing by law enforcers on opposition leaders and activists" in Cox's Bazar and elsewhere in the country.
The reaction came against the backdrop of Friday's gunfight in Cox's Bazar town when at least three Jamaat-Shibir men were killed and 50 people, including policemen, were injured.
Jamaat-e-Islami called a countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal for tomorrow to protest the deaths.
In a statement, BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir demanded exemplary punishment to "the police members involved in killing opposition leaders and activists".
“It is a constitutional right to hold rally or procession in a democratic country,†he said, without naming Jamaat, a key component of BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance.
In a separate press release, Fakhrul, also spokesman for the BNP, claimed that some "identified government-backed people from Shahbagh issued threats to Amar Desh acting editor Mahmudur Rahman, Dhaka University professor Asif Nazrul, and Brac University's Prof Piash Karim".
Fakhrul said, “A certain quarter was trying to use the nonpartisan youth's demand at Shahbagh Chattar in the interests of their party. People hope that the youths will remain vigilant against any conspiracy of the evil quarter."
The BNP leader also expressed "deep concern" over the killing of the anti-war criminal blogger and Shahbagh campaigner, Ahmed Rajib Haidar.
The killing of the blogger proves that an extreme level of anarchy is prevailing in the country at present, another statement quoted Fakhrul as saying.
He demanded that the government finds out the killers and gives exemplary punishment to the perpetrators. Rajib was stabbed dead near his home in the capital's Pallabi Friday night.
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