BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Wednesday alleged that the government has turned the country into a ‘hell’ by arresting and repressing the opposition leaders and activists amid a pandemic.

In a statement, he alleged that police are not only arresting BNP leaders and activists in different parts of the country, including Brahmanbaria, Dhaka and Narsingdi, but also raiding their houses, launching a crackdown.

“The Awami League government has turned the whole country into a hell. They’re arresting the leaders and activists of BNP and its associate bodies every day. Even in the month of Ramadan, the monstrous image of the government seems to have taken a bigger shape,” Fakhrul said.

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He urged the government to immediately stop such arrests and release the arrested opposition leaders and activists.

Amid people’s anxiety and panic over the coronavirus pandemic, the BNP leader said, the government did not reduce its level of repression on the opposition leaders and activists. “Rather it has multiplied many times.”

Fakhrul said the people of Bangladesh are now going through a tough time under the ‘barbaric’ rule of an ‘oppressive regime’.

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“The people of the country are fed-up at the cruel and inhuman behaviour of the Awami government. The patriotic people and the political leaders and activists must be united to protect the country from misrule. There’s no alternative to forging a unity,” he observed.