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AL to go tough with opposition
[Bangla Daily Star] The ruling Awami League will take a tough stance if the BNP-led opposition parties enforce hartal... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... or observe similar anti-government agitation programmes in the coming days. AL insiders said the party would take to the streets to curb the opposition agitation. In no circumstances, the BNP and allies would be allowed to "hamper development activities of the government". "We will go tough against those who will try to hinder development activities. We won't spare anyone who will try to create anarchy in the name of movement," AL Organising Secretary Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury told The Daily Star yesterday. He added that as a pro-people party, the AL would stay alert in the streets to thwart BNP's anti-government movement. Khalid, however, said they believe "the opposition leaders who go into hiding and are not courageous enough to face charges won't be able to wage a movement to unseat this government". The main opposition BNP has already announced that after May 6 it would take up programmes even harsher than hartal to press the government for return of its missing leader Ilias Ali, withdrawal of "false charges" against most of its top leaders and reinstatement of the caretaker government system to hold the next parliamentary election. In last 12 days, the BNP-led 18-party alliance has enforced five dawn-to-dusk shutdowns and staged demonstrations across the country to protest the disappearance of Ilias Ali and his driver. Ilias, one of the organising secretaries of the BNP and a former politician, went missing in the early hours of April 18. AL high-ups claim the government has been trying its best to find out Ilias. So, they reason, there is no logic in calling hartal. Besides, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina  ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide...herself has assured Ilias' wife Tahsina Rushdir Luna of doing everything necessary to trace her husband. On the two cases filed against the BNP leaders on charges of involvement in blasts and vandalism during hartal hours, AL leaders said the senior BNP leaders must accept responsibility when one bus driver had been burned alive and many vehicles smashed or torched by hartal pickets. The ruling party leaders also said the charges had been brought against senior opposition leaders as they had threatened to set the country on fire. About the opposition's demand for withdrawal of the charges, AL Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif said, "The law will take its own course and no one is above the law." On April 29, 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. Posted by: Fred 2012-05-05 |
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