...aka Jatiya Front; a political party established by Bangladictator Lieutenant General Hussain Muhammad Ershad in 1986 to lend a veneer of respectability to his rule. Since nobody was amused he was forced to resign by popular demand in 1990. The party remains in existence with about a dozen seats in Bangla's parliament...
Chairman HM Ershad has threatened that he would shoot himself to death if any attempt is made to arrest him.
The former dictator made the statement before journalists hours after law enforcers cordoned off his house at Baridhara diplomatic zone in the capital in the wake of his announcement to stay away from the next parliamentary election.
Ershad went down to the ground floor of 'President Park', his house, at 11:10pm to talk with journalists who had been crowding there since yesterday afternoon to cover if Ershad was nabbed
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
If the law enforcers tried to arrest him, he would kill himself with the four bullets loaded in his pistol, Bangla daily Prothom Alo quoted Ershad to be saying.
Saying that he was not fearing arrest though many were doing so, the JP chief said the country would be on fire if he was arrested, the Prothom Alo report added.
He said there was no-one beside him when he took the decision to boycott the upcoming parliamentary polls.
He took the right decision and would stick to that, Ershad insisted, the Prothom Alo report reads.
The JP chief also said his partymen were ready to take to the streets.
After the deployment of a large number of police and Rab at Ershad's house yesterday afternoon, a rumour spread fast that the former military strongman might be arrested.
A mid-ranking officer of a Rapid Action Battalion
-1 team that entered the former dictator's house told The Daily Star that they went there to arrest the JP chief.But Kismat Hayat, commanding officer of Rab-1, contradicted it, and said: "We are here to ensure his security since a large number of people are coming here since the noon."