Gono Odhikar Parishad President Nurul Haque Nur on Saturday alleged that a section within the interim government had patronised an attack on him earlier in the year and said the failure to ensure justice at that time emboldened criminals to kill Sharif Osman Hadi.

“If there had been justice for what happened to us, Sharif Osman Hadi would not have been killed. Because this government failed, the killers dared to murder Hadi,”  Nur said, while addressing a pre-rally gathering at Bijoynagar in the capital. The party organised the programme demanding the arrest of the accused and justice for Hadi’s killing.

Party Secretary General Rashed Khan and other leaders and activists were present.

Nur said the nation has been left stunned by Hadi’s death. “Leftists once said they did not want to take the country from a boiling pan to a burning one. That is exactly what has happened now,” he said, accusing the government of fostering political hooliganism and patronising fascism. “It has pushed revolutionaries towards death.”

The former DUCSU vice-president also blamed the government’s failure for mob attacks on media houses, including The Daily Star and Prothom Alo, and for the harassment of New Age Editor Nurul Kabir.

Nur further warned of a “deep conspiracy” behind mob violence aimed at destabilising Bangladesh and spreading negative narratives globally. 

“The conspirators want to eliminate those who are revolutionary today, just as intellectuals were killed before independence,” he said.

Speaking at the programme, Rashed Khan questioned how Hadi’s killers managed to flee. “What are the country’s intelligence agencies doing?” he asked, adding that a culture of impunity had prevailed in the past and continues now because the government is “completely failed.”