Crackdown a pretext to suppress opposition: BNP

BNP today feared that the government may suppress the opposition on the pretext of carrying out a crackdown on extremists across the country.

"This (crackdown) is their strategy with which they earlier used to suppress people's movement. We fear they'll again oppress the opposition in the name of conducting a crackdown," said BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

At a meeting of its high officials yesterday, the police department decided to launch a weeklong clampdown on militants throughout the country beginning this morning.

Raising doubts about the motive behind the police drive, Fakhrul alleged, "The incidents of crossfire or gunfight marked a sharp rise in the name of this operation as nine people have already killed within a short time."

The BNP secretary general came up with the remarks while talking to reporters after visiting BNP chairman candidate of Gaibandha's Erendabari union Azizur Rahman at National Institute of Traumatology & Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (NITOR) in the city's Aagargaon area.

On June 2, unidentified miscreants shot Azizur Rahman in the legs through a window while he was asleep at home just two days before the polls, leaving him seriously injured. Doctors amputated his left leg two days back.

Mentioning that the violence over UP polls has brooked all the previous records, the BNP leader said the Election Commission has completely destroyed the country's election system with its incompetence, loyalty to the ruling party and submissive role.

He also said there is no alternative to holding a national electing under a non-party administration to get rid of the country's current situation.