BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Saturday urged people of all communities, including the Hindus, to forge ‘unbreakable’ unity to restore democracy in the country.

"There will never be peace and no community or individual will be safe in a country where democracy is not established,” he said

Stating that democracy is now absent in the country, the BNP leader said the current government has snatched people’s all rights, including the right to vote, to establish a one-party rule and hang on to power.

 "What we now need is our unbreakable unity. We all political parties and all communities, including Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Christian, should unite to establish our right for which we fought in 1971, and to bring back our right to freedom, our right to sovereignty and our democratic rights,” he said.

The BNP Secretary General made the call while exchanging greetings with the leaders of the Hindu community at the BNP chairperson's Gulshan office on the occasion of Janmashtami, marking the birth of Lord Krishna.

Read: AL set to observe 18th anniversary of August 21 grenade attack on Sunday

Fakhrul alleged that the Hindu community members have been tortured while their temples and places of worship have been attacked repeatedly since Awami League came to power. “Not only the Hindu community has been attacked but also the Buddhist and Christian communities have been attacked equally.  That is the reality.”

He said Lord Krishna appeared on this earth to take mankind from darkness to the light alongside restoring the rights of people that were snatched by the oppressors. “The situation prevailing in Bangladesh now has the similarity in many ways with the time when Lord Krishna appeared."

On behalf of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and Acting Chairman Tariq Rahman, Fakhrul greeted the members of the Hindu community on the occasion of Janmashtami.

BNP standing committee members Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Mirza Abbas, Abdul Moyeen Khan, and Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, party leaders Netai  Roy Chowdhury, Sukomal Barua, Jayant Kumar Kund, Aparna Roy, Ramesh Dutta, Sushil Barua, Debashish Roy Madhu, Kamaksha Chandra Das, Tarun Dey, Milton Baidya, Joydeb Joy, Suranjan Ghosh and Ganoforum leader Subrata Chowdhury were among others, present at the programme chaired by BNP chairperson's advisory council member Bijan Kanti Sarkar.