Many leaders and organisers of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its affiliated organisations have left their houses and remain on the run to avoid arrests as the police have intensified their drive ahead of the opposition party’s mass rally in Dhaka on December 10.
The police raided the houses or empty properties of the opposition activists and arrested family members in some cases, while courts issued arrest warrants against senior BNP leaders and key organisers in pending cases.
Many of the leaders stopped answering the phone to hide their location in a bid to avoid arrest.
‘I cannot share my whereabouts, but I can say I am out of my house for a few days,’ Swechchhasebak Dal central committee joint secretary Saiful Islam Firoz told New Age while attending a meeting with his trusted fellows.
Khandaker Abu Ashfaque, president of the BNP’s Dhaka district unit, said police broke open the door and raided his empty Gulshan apartment early Sunday, vandalising properties in search of him.
The BNP stated that the party’s joint secretary general, Habib-un-Nabi Khan Shohel, was extremely sick, but the Detective Branch of police raided his house and arrested his apolitical brother, Abdur Rahman Shohel.
The police headquarters said on Monday that they arrested 3,860 between Friday and Sunday in the nationwide special drive in connection with 1,138 cases.
The main opposition, meanwhile, stated on Monday evening that 1,315 of their leaders and activists and even their drivers or assistants were arrested in Dhaka and other districts between midnight on November 30 and Monday afternoon, ahead of its December 10 mass rally in the capital, in ‘fictitious,’ ‘ghost’ or pending cases.
Leaders of the BNP-backed lawyers met chief justice Hasan Foez Siddique on Monday and requested that he take steps to restore the public’s faith and trust in the judiciary, keeping it free from ‘political influence.’
Jatiyatabadi Ainjibi Forum spokesman AKM Ehsanur Rahman said that they had also handed over to the chief justice a letter ‘to uphold the supremacy of the constitution upon protecting the image, dignity, and prestige of the judiciary.’
The forum in the letter asked the chief justice to take steps to ensure that the ‘politically motivated’ cases, including those filed under the Digital Security Act, were dealt with in a manner that might regain public faith and trust in the judiciary.
The forum, led by its president AJ Mohammad Ali and secretary general, Kayser Kamal, also asked the chief justice to take into account various local and international human rights reports that it annexed to the letter.
A metropolitan magistrate court issued an arrest warrant against BNP leader Ishraque Hossain and 13 others in a ‘sabotage case’ filed with Motijheel police station in 2020.
The magistrate, Rajesh Chowdhury, passed the order on Monday from his chamber after holding a hearing in open court, said Ishraque’s lawyers.
Sub-inspector Shah Alam at the court said the court issued the warrant against the BNP leader as he did not appear before the court in the case.
The court officials said that Ishraque Hossain walked out on bail in this case on April 12, 2022.
Additional metropolitan magistrate Asaduzzaman Nur issued an arrest warrant against BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi in a 2012 case filed for his alleged role in ‘torching’ a dump truck in Dhaka.
The same magistrate on Sunday issued an arrest warrant against 26 leaders and activists of the BNP, including Juba Dal president Sultan Salahuddin Tuku, and BNP leader Saiful Islam Nirob, in a case lodged in February 2021 for attacking police and obstructing them from conducting their job.
According to the Dhaka Metropolitan Police media wing, 727 people have been arrested in the capital, Dhaka, in the past four days since the start of a 15-day special police drive to control the crime situation.
No arrests, however, were made by the Rapid Action Battalion, their officials said.
The BNP stated on their verified Facebook page that police in plain clothes cordoned off the house of BNP standing committee member Mirza Abbas and continued patrolling.
The BNP alleged that arrests were made in Dhanmondi, New Market, Kotwali, Kamrangirchar, Bangshal, Chawkbazar, Kalabagan, Lalbagh, Sabujbagh, Khilgaon, Syampur, Jatrabari, Demra, Hazaribag, Shahjahnapur, Kafrul, Pallabi, Cantonment, Uttara, Rampura, Badda, Mohammadpur, and Tejgaon in the capital.
The BNP alleged that the police also arrested leaders and organisers in Khulna, Narayanganj, Faridpur, Narshingdi, Chuadanga, Jashore, and Munshiganj.
Against this backdrop, BNP general secretary Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir vowed to make the rally a success at any cost.
‘This struggle is for our existence,’ Fakhrul told a programme at the BNP chairperson’s office in Dhaka.
‘The whole world is watching what is going to happen during the BNP rally in Dhaka on December 10,’ he said, adding that preparations for the rally should be made despite the arrests and cases.
Awami League leaders, meanwhile, were seen holding rallies in different parts of the capital and announced that they would bar BNP people from entering the capital before December 10.
In a street programme in Mirpur, organised on Monday by the Darussalam unit Awami League, city north unit secretary general MA Mannan Kochi, asked his followers not to allow any opposition activists.
Darussalam unit Awami League leader Gias Uddin Ahmed announced that they would not allow a single BNP activist or leader to get into Dhaka.
‘If we need to murder, we will commit murder but not be killed,’ he told the gathering attended by Awami League lawmaker Aga Khan Mintu.
In Mirpur, a woman identifying herself as Rumanna Parvin and a ruling party leader said that police arrested her brother, Mohammad Sajal, on Sunday for having a picture with their BNP relative.
She said that her brother was arrested in connection with an explosive substance case filed with the Mirpur police station.
The Mirpur police station officer-in-charge, Mustafizur Rahman, said they arrested him based on facts. ‘We do not consider the political identity of his family,’ he added.
The police headquarters have instructed all their units across the country to carry out a special operation between December 1 and December 15, raiding hotels, dormitories, hostels, community centres and other places in search of ‘terrorists, criminals, drug dealers, illegal arms holders, and suspects’ with arrest warrants.
