BNP senior leader Mirza Abbas on Monday said their party is ready to hold a rally in Dhaka on December 10 defying all sorts of repressions and ‘terror activities’ unleashed by the government.
"None of our Dhaka city leaders now can stay at home as the government has created such a terrible situation here by resorting to terror activities. But our activists are not afraid of it,” he said.
The BNP leader made the remarks while speaking at a press briefing at the party's Nayapaltan central office.
He said they will make the rally a success by tackling the repressive acts. “We urge the government not to create any obstacle in our peaceful rally.”
Abbas, a BNP standing committee member who is overseeing the party’s preparatory activities for arranging the rally, once again said they may consider holding their programme at any suitable venue inside Dhaka other than Suhrawardi Udyan and the bank of the Turag River.
Read: Rab ready to tackle ‘any situation’ arising over BNP’s Dec 10 Dhaka rally
He strongly condemned the attack on BNP executive committee member Ishraque Hossain by the activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League BCL) near Jagannath University (JnU) on Sunday while distributing leaflets for the party’s December-10 rally
"By attacking Ishraq, they (Awami League) proved that they not, BNP, are indulging in terrorism. This’s not an isolated attack, but they are carrying out such incidents one after another,” the BNP leader said,.
He said the ruling party ‘cadres’ attacked the house of BNP leader Barrister Nasir Uddin Asim' a few days back and carried out a crude bomb explosion in front of the BNP office at Nayapaltan.
Abbas said the government itself has been propagating that there will be terrorism centring BNP’s rally. "I would like to know why the ruling party is attacking us when we’re going to hold a peaceful rally from where our next course of programmes will be announced.”
The BNP leader said they will not respond to any kind of provocation by the government as their main goal is to hold the progranmme without any chaos.
Read: People are afraid of BNP’s Dec 10 rally: Obaidul Quader
He said their party has no plan rather than holding the rally peacefully. ”We’ll just hold the rally from 12pm to 4pm and then our leaders and activists will return to their homes.”
The BNP leader alleged that police encircled his Shahjahanpur House since morning. “There was a workers’ meeting at my house today (Monday) where I was supposed to give them directives for arranging our rally in a peaceful manner, but I was not allowed to do that. My house was surrounded by police.”
He questioned whether the country has been in the grasp of terrorists that BNP leaders are now not safe both at their home and office.