The Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Wednesday raised question about the role of police during sporadic clashes between students and traders in New Market area on Monday night and Tuesday that killed a courier employee and injured scores of people.
Addressing a programme at BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office in Dhaka, BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam said that an early intervention of police might stop the clash much before it became deadly.
‘A young person was killed and several others were seriously injured in the series of clashes between students and businessmen in New Market area,’ he added.
Fakhrul said that it was still a mystery why the police remained inactive for hours before taking actions against the rioters.
Mentioning that a police officer said that they stayed inactive for strategic reasons, Fakhril said that he wanted to know the strategic reasons.
The government has completely failed to run the country and deliver on all fronts, he said, adding that the ‘failed government’ had turned the country into a failed state as it had no control on anybody and any organisation because the government had no accountability to the people.
The police and other departments of the government have no accountability to people that creates lawlessness in the country, he said.
A courier service employee and over 100 people were injured as a group of Dhaka College students and shopkeepers in New Market area fought pitched battles on Tuesday following an altercation at a fast food shop on Monday night.
On Tuesday, Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner Md Shafiqul Islam said that the situation had taken a very complex turn at the scene.
‘The police are treating students softly for technical reasons. The situation cannot be controlled by firing here because students, not the common people, are on the streets,’ he told reporters at the secretariat after a meeting.
