BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Thursday alleged that an artificial crisis of rice and different food grains has been created to make a quick buck by raising their prices.

“The problem with the present government is that they want to make profits from everything, even from essential food items, illegally,” he said.

Talking to reporters in front of a hospital in the city, he said the famine Bangladesh faced in 1974 was caused by misrule and corruption, not by the food crisis.

"In the same way, they are now unjustly raising the prices after stockpiling the food grains that people need much.  They are raising the prices in the market by creating an artificial crisis,” the BNP leader said.

Also read: BNP, Biplobi Workers Party agree to oust govt thru movement: Fakhrul

Fakhrul went to Health Aid Diagnostic and Hospital in the city’ Basabo area to visit Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal senior vice-president Rashed Iqbal Khan, organising secretary Abu Afsan Mohammad Yahya and Dhaka City north unit leader Shahabuddin Shihab, who were seriously injured in attacks by Bangladesh Chhatra League on May 24 on Dhaka University campus.

He voiced concern that the prices of wheat, flour, milk and bread have gone up alongside rice.

“What will our poor people do? Most of the rickshaw pullers eat a banana and bread from the footpath shops. The price of that bread has doubled. The price of rice has gone up by Tk 10 to 15 per kg,” the BNP leader said.

He said the government itself is playing the biggest role in raising the prices of essential and food items.  “Their evil tricks are behind it, but people are going through immense sufferings.”

Fakhrul said Awami League government wants to hang onto to power by resorting to terrorism, not with the love of people. "This is their basic character. Not just this time, they have been trying to establish their politics in the country through terrorism since their inception.”

He alleged that the ruling party is now trying to cling to power by holding the next polls under it, terrorising and intimidating people. ”People of Bangladesh won’t give them a chance this time to make it happen.

Also read: BNP vows to overcome intimidation, repression: Fakhrul

The BNP leader said Awami League must step down from power and the election has to be conducted by a neutral election commission under a neutral government.