BNP is in the tension of falling in cornered situation as they’re seriously worried about the arrests of their leaders and the verdict of various cases against them.
They are in fear that verdict of fake cases against their leaders might be delivered in bulk ahead of next national election. According to the policy making forum of the party, the government is planning to file fake cases against their top leaders and make them disqualified for the election, along with imprison them. That means the government wants to stretch their tenure of regime indefinitely by making BNP leaderless, they think.
BNP standing committee member Dr. Khandkar Mosharraf Hossain told The Bangladesh Pratidin, “The government already has this big plan to make BNP leaderless. National leader Begum Khaleda Zia has been imprisoned by formal judgment and sentence through the court in a false and fabricated case. Old, suspended and dead cases have been activated and the process of speedy judgment and sentencing has started against them. The recently announced verdict of the sentence against BNP leader Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku and Amanullah Aman by the High Court is part of this plan and conspiracy of the government. But it will not be of any use this time as the people have taken to the streets. The fall of this totally failed government is inevitable.”
Meanwhile, according to various sources, the entire BNP has been caught in the web of the government's case. Starting from party chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia, there is no active leader of grassroots who does not have multiple cases to his name. No one was spared from the case. BNP leaders and activists are being arrested in old cases at a time when like-minded alliances including BNP are busy preparing the final tableau of the movement for a one-point demand for the fall of the government. As a result, there is a new fear of arrest in the party amid their movement to overthrow the government.
The BNP leaders alleged that important active leaders of the party were being 'targeted' and arrested in old cases. The government wants to imprison BNP leaders ahead of the 12th national elections. The sudden speed in the trial is a reflection of that. For this, they are afraid of being arrested. According to party sources, since Awami League came to power in 2009, the number of accused in the case against BNP is 49, 41, 722. And the number of anonymous accused is several times more than this. Out of the total cases, more than 2, 830 have been booked under the Digital Security Act. Among them there are hundreds of missing cases.
According to the information obtained from the office of BNP, the proceedings of the case filed even by the government of One-Eleven are progressing rapidly. Some cases are at the end. BNP general secretary, standing committee members, middle rank and young leaders are accused in these political cases. According to sources, the proceedings of the cases against BNP seniors including Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi are going to be settled quickly. In particular, the cases of 2013 and 14 are being brought to the brink of judgment by presenting 10 to 15 witnesses a day. In the meantime, in a case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission in 2007, the Acting Chairman of BNP, Tarique Rahman, was sentenced to 9 years of rigorous imprisonment and his wife Dr. Zobaida Rahman was also sentenced to three years in prison by the court.
The High Court upheld the 9-year sentence of BNP leader Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tukur in the judicial court recently in a case filed during the caretaker government. In a separate case, the 13-year sentence for another party leader, Amanullah Aman, was upheld. He is currently in jail. Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, Senior Joint Secretary General of BNP, said, “The government is imprisoning the popular leaders in the area by imprisoning them in fabricated cases while keeping the electoral field empty. These judgments are totally managed by the government.”
In this regard, the member of the standing committee of the party, Abdul Moin Khan said the government has suddenly turned on the opposition party. BNP believes in peaceful and liberal politics. For the past one year, we have been in a peaceful movement on the streets with the people. On the contrary, the government is not only inciting BNP, but has repressed BNP with false, absurd, fabricated, fictitious and invisible cases.
(The report was published in Bengali on print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on October 14 and rewritten in English by Lutful Hoque)
