Says Fakhrul
Staff Correspondent The
BNP yesterday claimed the recent remarks of prime minister's adviser HT
Imam about the January 5 polls have substantiated its allegation that
the then government had used the administration to hold the election. “During the polls we had said the Awami League government used the commission [Election Commission] politically to establish its control over the election. This is the commission that presented us with such an election,” BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told a press conference at the party's Nayapaltan central office.
The press meet was organised to inform the media about the BNP's decisions from its standing committee meeting held on Thursday night.
Speaking at a discussion at Dhaka University on Wednesday, Imam described how the AL benefited from its men in the administration during the January 5 polls.
Days before the election, many pro-AL officials were inducted into mobile courts that helped the then government resist the BNP-Jamaat's bid to thwart the polls, he mentioned.
“They [pro-AL officials] stood by us. Nineteen of our policemen were killed brutally by Jamaat-Shibir men,” Imam said referring to the pre-election violence across the country.
KIBRIA MURDER CASE
Fakhrul said his party was deeply concerned that some party leaders were charged with the murder of former finance minister SAMS Kibria.
The BNP thinks that inclusion of the names of Sylhet Mayor Ariful Haque Chowdhury and Habiganj municipality Mayor GK Gaus in the charge sheet has a political motivation, he mentioned.
The party, added Fakhrul, believes the allegations against its leaders are part of a blueprint drawn up by the government to destroy BNP leadership.
The CID on Thursday submitted the third charge sheet in the murder case to a Habiganj court. It also accused Harris Chowdhury, former political secretary to Khaleda Zia, of the murder. But Fakhrul did not mention his name at the press conference.
Meanwhile, BNP Vice-chairman Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury at a press conference in Sylhet city yesterday announced that the district and city BNP units will jointly hold a rally at Court Point in the city tomorrow afternoon protesting inclusion of the names of BNP leaders in the supplementary charge sheet of Kibria murder case.
Kibria, then an opposition lawmaker, was assassinated in a grenade attack while addressing a rally in Habiganj on January 27, 2005.
