‘BNP to intensify movement, legal battle for Khaleda’s release’

BNP will come up with a package of movement along with legal battle within four weeks to ensure immediate release of the party’s imprisoned Chairperson Khaleda Zia.

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir today made the announcement after a meeting of the party’s national standing committee, highest policy making body, at Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan office in Dhaka.

“We took a decision in the meeting to intensify the ongoing movement immediately for ensuring release of our party chief Khaleda Zia from jail. The meeting also decided to go for a legal battle in this regard,” Fakhrul said.

Responding to a query on when the movement will be enforced, Fakhrul said, “We are working with the issue and we will go for the movement within four weeks.”

On June 22, BNP in a standing committee meeting also decided that it would wage a movement across the country to ensure Khaleda Zia’s release from jail.

The BNP leaders discussed on several issues including the country’s prevailing political situation, Barguna’s Rifat Sharif murder and the present crisis developed in its student front Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD).

BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman also joined the meeting through Skype from London and instructed the party’s high-ups to carry out movement in line with his decision, meeting sources said.

When asked about the present setback in the JCD, Fakhrul said the party has given authority to some of its central leaders to solve the crisis and they will do their best in this regard.

In replying to a query about Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque today’s call in the parliament on removal of Ziaur Rahman’s grave from the parliament premise, Fakhrul said, “It is nothing but an outcome of the government’s politics of bankruptcy.”

About Barguna’s Rifat Sharif’ murder, Fakhrul expressed his party’s condemnation to the killing and said the government’s failure and inaction are responsible for occurrence of such crimes.

As the government is not elected by the people, it has no accountability to the countrymen, the BNP leader said.

The country is being made dysfunctional gradually as financial, political and social crises are prevailing upon it, he said.

Release of BNP leaders including Khaleda Zia from jail and holding of a neutral election under a non-party government are only the ways to get rid of the situation, Fakhrul added.