The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party announced on Wednesday that it would hold mass contact and distribute leaflets among people across the country on March 9, protesting at the increase in prices of electricity, gas, fuel, and daily commodities.
BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi announced it at a press conference at the party’s Naya Paltan central office.
He said that along with the daily incidents of secret killings, kidnappings, disappearances, and crossfire, the government had exacerbated the electricity, gas, energy, and water crisis.
‘An indemnity act has been enacted to save people involved in irregularities and corruption in the power sector,’ he said, pointing out that the prices of electricity have been increased 13 times in the past 14 years.
Rizvi said that the government was causing a disaster to the country's environment by using polluted fuel oil for commission and looting.
Besides, billions of dollars are being smuggled out of the country, he said.
Rizvi pointed out that the syndicate was becoming reckless with prices of daily essential products ahead of the holy month of Ramadan.
He said that prices were being increased in a planned way.
Meanwhile, BNP standing committee member Abdul Moyeen Khan alleged that the government had sent the party’s vice chairman, Hafizuddin Ahmed, to jail out of anger or revenge.
While meeting Hafizuddin’s wife at their Banani residence on Wednesday morning, Moyeen Khan said that a situation was being created for Hafizuddin to join the ruling party.
‘I think the degradation of this government [sending Hafizuddin to jail] was evident on Tuesday. It is sad and shameful, and we do not know any language to condemn it. I can only say that the government is doing this out of anger or revenge,’ he added.
He said that the government had arrested Hafizuddin in a false case.
He said that the government was creating various situations to force BNP people to join the ruling party.
'Today, not only politics but everything, including the country’s economy and social system, has been destroyed. All the institutions that exist in Bangladesh, including the police administration, judiciary, parliament, and the Election Commission, have been destroyed due to politics of revenge,’ he observed.
During the visit, Hafizuddin’s wife, Dilara Hafiz, said that the case against her husband was false.
‘This case has no basis. No witnesses, no clue. The most important thing is that my husband is now more than 79 years old. He is very sick. He recently had knee surgery,’ she said.
