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Arrests, raids; BNP leaders hiding
Amid raids and arrests, senior BNP leaders have gone into hiding, as the government's sudden tough stance against the opposition's continuous agitation yesterday sent panic sweeping through the ranks of the 18-party alliance.Police placed in durance vile Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! the BNP's Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi in the capital's Kakrail area around two hours after yesterday's dawn-to-dusk hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... , the last of the two back-to-back shutdowns called by the BNP-led opposition alliance to protest the disappearance of its leader M Ilias Ali. Earlier, during the hartal hours and on Sunday night, law enforcers rounded up 10 opposition men, including former student leader Kamruzzaman Ratan -- a close associate of Ilias Ali -- and former deputy minister Sirajul Haque. In the early hours yesterday, police raided BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir's Uttara residence. In the afternoon, they swooped on standing committee member Mirza Abbas' house at South Shahjahanpur. Unlike on other hartal days, Fakhrul and other top leaders were not seen in the party's central office at Nayapaltan yesterday. They had gone into hiding fearing arrests in two cases filed for kabooms in the secretariat compound and the torching of buses on Sunday, insiders said. Fakhrul and several big shots of the BNP and its allies are accused in the two cases, filed on Sunday night. Yesterday's lockdown ended without any major incidents of violence with a thin presence of opposition pickets on the streets. The main opposition party termed the cases against its leaders "ill-motivated" and called a countrywide demonstration for tomorrow in protest at the raids and filing of the cases. Hours before his arrest, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi at a press briefing at the party's Nayapaltan office said fresh agitation programmes would be announced from a protest rally tomorrow. Asking the government to withdraw the cases, party's big shot Moudud Ahmed at the briefing said cases and raids would not be able to weaken the agitation and that the government would be removed through a movement. Meanwhile, ...back at the fist fight, Jake ducked another roundhouse, then parried with his left, then with his right, finally with his chin... State Minister for Home Shamsul Haque Tuku at a briefing at his office said the BNP leaders were named in the cases on the basis of intelligence and more opposition leaders would be accused if their names came up. He claimed the violence during Sunday's hartal took place on instructions of the BNP high-ups. Political tensions have been running high since the disappearance of Ilias Ali, an organising secretary of BNP and also a former politician, and his driver around midnight of April 17 from the capital's Banani area. On April 19, BNP Chairperson  Khaleda ZiaThree-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... alleged some government agencies had picked up Ilias Ali. On the same day, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said Ilias might be hiding himself on Khaleda Zia's instructions. Two weeks on, law enforcers are yet find the two. In protest at the incident, BNP enforced back-to-back countrywide hartals across the country from April 22 to 24. RAIDS, CASES AND ARRESTS The law enforcers raided Mirza Fakhrul's Uttara residence early yesterday. However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... Fakhrul was not home. Considering the distance between his house and the party office, he usually spends the night before a BNP-enforced hartal day at places adjacent to the Nayapaltan office, party sources said. Police scaled the boundary wall of Fakhrul's house around 4:30am and knocked on the door. Rahat Ara Begum, his wife, opened the door and allowed the law enforcers in. They combed through all the rooms before they left, Rahat told The Daily Star. Police also raided BNP leader Mirza Abbas' South Shahjahanpur residence yesterday afternoon to arrest him in connection with the case filed for torching of buses. He was not home at the time either. Afroza Abbas, wife of the BNP leader, said some 25 cops entered her house around 2:30pm and wanted to know the whereabouts of her husband. The team then searched the house for nearly 30 minutes before leaving. Police also searched the house of Khairul Kabir Khokon and his wife Shirin Sultana's at the capital's Khilgaon. Both of them are former politicians. A raid was also conducted at BNP leader Habib-un-Nabi Sohel's house in the capital. In a late night development, police raided the house of Jubo Dal president Moazzem Hossain Alal's Lalmatia residence in the capital around 11:00pm yesterday, when he was not home. Earlier on Sunday night Tejgaon police filed a case against 44 leaders and activists of the BNP-led 18-party alliance for torching a vehicle near the Prime Minister's Office that day. The accused include Mirza Fakhrul, party standing committee members Mirza Abbas, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy and Hannan Shah, party Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, party politician Shahiduddin Chowdhury Anee, and Liberal Democratic Party President Oli Ahmed. On the same day, Shahbagh police accused 28 opposition leaders in a case in connection with the "bomb" blasts on the secretariat compound, with Mirza Fakhrul the main accused. Posted by: Fred 2012-05-01 |
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