BNP blames govt for attacks on students

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir today blamed the ruling Awami League for carrying out sporadic attacks on the agitating students at different places across Dhaka that left several innocent students critically injured.

“The ruling party goons carried out brutal attacks on the innocent students in the capital’s Jigatola, Mirpor and other places. It is a cowardly attack. We condemn it,” Fakhrul said while addressing a press conference at the party chief Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan office this evening.

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BCL in its element

Fakhrul said the agitating students alleged that a group of activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student front of the ruling AL, swooped on them without any provocation at Jigatol in Dhaka’s Dhanmondi this afternoon.

The innocent students have been engaged in carrying out peaceful movement on the streets only for the sake of their lives and for safe roads, he said.

But the government has implicated BNP in the movement in a planned way to foil the ongoing student protests, the BNP leader also said.

“We have extended out support to the student movement on logical ground and demanded step down of the government for its utter failure in the running the country properly,” he added.

Earlier in the day, BNP spokesperson Rizvi Ahmed said that the ruling Awami League has let loose its student and youth front leaders and activists at different strategic points across Dhaka to forcibly thwart the peaceful movement of the students.

“The government will meet a dire consequence if the innocent students are attacked by the ruling party men deliberately,” Rizvi came up with the warning while addressing a press conference at the party’s Nayapaltan central office in Dhaka this noon.

Awami League has deployed its party men at different intersections in the capital in the name of monitoring the students’ movement, the BNP leader said quoting media reports.

The students will not allow the government to go unchallenged if they and their guardians are attacked on the streets, said Rizvi, also a senior joint secretary general of BNP.

Rizvi held Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader and Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan responsible for mismanagement on the streets and said at least 20 people are being killed in road accident per day.

“Around 25 thousand people have met tragic end of their lives in road accidents during the last three and half years while at least 62 thousand people sustained injuries at the same time,” he said quoting a media report.

About sufferings of the commuters, the BNP leader said the transport owners have refrained from plying their vehicles in line with the directives of the ministers.

With an evil motive, Bangladesh Chhatra League and Jubo League men in the guise of students took position on the streets to take the ongoing students movement to another direction, he alleged.

He also blamed the BCL men for vandalising and setting fire to vehicles on the streets to spoil the ongoing student movement.

Students of schools and colleges took to streets today for the 7th consecutive day and staged demonstrations to press home their demands, including punishment of those responsible for the accident on Airport Road in Dhaka on Sunday that left their two fellows dead on the spot.