BNP in Run-up to Polls: Case-spree hints at a rough ride

The case filing spree that resumes after about three years' gap is making BNP leaders rethink strategies as they fear the days before the national elections will not be smooth for them.

Before this, several hundred cases were filed against the party men between 2013 and 2015. And charge sheets were submitted against senior BNP leaders in a number of cases.

The government has started implicating the BNP top brass again this year not only to weaken the party before the polls but also to provoke it into resorting to violence, the leaders alleged.

But the BNP high-ups want to move ahead defying all obstacles without walking into the trap, they added.

"We're not bothered about the cases. This is an old trick of the government. We will have to move forward despite such odds," BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told The Daily Star yesterday.

"We will stage demonstrations tomorrow [today] and the day after tomorrow. We will hold more programmes step by step," he said.

More than a dozen cases were filed against senior BNP leaders on Monday, a day after the party high-ups asked its activists and supporters to prepare for both polls and movement from a rally at Suhrawardy Udyan.

While BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia is in jail on graft charges, other top leaders including standing committee members, joint and organising secretaries now remain burdened with cases.

Mirza Fakhrul said the government filed as many as 4,098 cases against nearly 300,000 BNP men and arrested at least 4,300 activists in September alone.

"These are nothing but baseless and ghostly cases filed with political motives," said Fakhrul, accused in 87 cases.

Ruhul Quddus Talukder Dulu, one of the organising secretaries facing 107 cases now, said the government is filing false cases one after another as it has become desperate towards the end of its tenure.

"We are not worried about new cases. We have only two concerns now -- election and movement," he said.

A mid-ranking leader, wishing anonymity, said they will observe the situation till the announcement of election schedule. "We will go for movement only after the announcement of the election schedule."

The filing of fresh cases has prompted the BNP leaders to seek anticipatory bails from the High Court. Moudud Ahmed and Sanaullah Miah yesterday secured that in two separate cases filed on Monday.

Moudud, a standing committee member, is accused in 28 cases, while pro-BNP lawyer Sanaullah faces at least 9 cases. 

"The government wants to keep us away from the election and from movement, but we will not budge from our stances,” Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain told The Daily Star.

Mosharraf, another standing committee member, is facing 17 cases.

“The government is moving ahead with an outline for a one-sided and silent election without people's participation,” BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said at a press briefing at the party's Nayapaltan headquarters.

“Filing of the cases against our senior leaders is the first step towards implementing their plan"

He said police are always ready with a format of fictitious charges to arrest BNP leaders and activists, and implicate them in cases. “They used the same format to file cases against our senior leaders in the past.”