Rohingya Crisis: Khaleda likely to visit Cox's Bazar on Oct 29

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia is likely to visit Cox's Bazar on October 29 to see the condition of the Rohingyas who have fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in Myanmar.

Khaleda will leave the capital for Chittagong on October 28 and spend the night and the following day there. She will then start for Cox's Bazar and visit Kutupalong Rohingya camp. She will return to the capital on October 30.

The decision came at a meeting of the BNP standing committee last night with Khaleda in the chair at her Gulshan office, meeting sources said.

The party plans to stage a huge showdown on November 7 to mark “the National Revolution and Solidarity Day”.

It decided to hold a rally at Suhrawardy Udyan in the capital on that day.

Some of the standing committee members said if the party is barred from holding the rally, it should announce alternative programmes.

When a member said police were not allowing BNP leaders and activists to stage demonstrations even at thana level, Khaleda said party programmes have to be held despite all obstructions.

The BNP chief also briefed the committee members about her meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. She termed the meeting “satisfactory”, according to the sources.

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir will brief the media about the committee meeting's outcome at a press conference at 11:00am today at the party's Nayapaltan headquarters.

It was Khaleda's first meeting with standing committee members since she returned from the UK on October 18 after a three-month stay at the house of her elder son Tarique Rahman.