Stating that a terribly suffocating situation has been prevailing amid the government’s repressive acts, BNP leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi on Monday alleged that the government has resorted to ‘targeted killing’ to suppress the opposition’s ongoing movement.

Speaking at a virtual press briefing, he also asked their party leaders and activists to remain alert as the government is plotting to unleash violence like attacking the temples of the minority communities to shift the blame onto BNP.

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“There’s an awful, suffocating and scary situation in the country. Especially, the lives and normal movement of the leaders and workers of the democratic political parties are under threat,” the BNP leader said.

He said there is hardly any BNP central leader whose house was not raided by law enforcers while their Nayapaltan central office was kept cordoned off with crime scene tape. “The country’s people and  the entire world community have been observing it.”

The BNP leader said many videos containing the scenes of violence planned by the Awami League have been going viral on social media every day since the attacks on BNP’s grand rally at Nayapaltan.

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He claimed that a video went viral with the footage of how some people carrying sticks attacked the chief justice’s residence with ‘police protection’.

“There’s another alarming thing which I want to share. It seems target killing is going on in the same old style. Two doctors in Rajshahi--one MBBS doctor, and another village doctor--were killed on the same night. They’re the local leaders of a party (Jamaat),” Rizvi said.

Besides, he said Zakir Hossain, a leader of Swechchasebak Dal in Cumilla, died after he had been chased by police. “It seems to us that these are all targeted killings. We express deep concerns over these incidents.  We think it has started all over the country as the government has taken a dangerous plan of target killing to suppress the opposition and traumatise the entire nation with fear,”

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He said the government has hatched a dangerous plot centring the BNP’s grand rally on October 28. “The evidence of that conspiracy has been exposed now through different video footage and photos. Though the government gave permission for the rally, they made a destructive blueprint to attack the programme.” 

From various incidents reported in the media, Rizvi said it seems that government agents may be plotting to carry out subversive activities in the temples of various religious communities in the country to blame the BNP.

“Because an audio clip containing the conversation of the law enforcers about such thing (attacks on temples) was found. It has exposed they’re hatching a deep plot. We ask the leaders and activists of BNP and its all associate bodies to remain alert about it,” he said.

Rizvi said the fall of the government is imminent as the ongoing movement for holding the next election under a non-party administration cannot be stopped by attacking the BNP leaders and activists and arresting them by implicating them in different cases.

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