BNP on Monday strongly condemned the alleged attack by Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) on common students protesting the quota system in government jobs at different parts of the country, including on the Dhaka University campus.
“They (students) have been successfully carrying out a movement with their demands. I think those who are agitating have families and relatives, and everyone is waiting to find a just solution,” said party standing committee member Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury.
Talking to reporters after a meeting with the leaders of a faction of Gono Odhikar Parishad, one of the components of the anti-government simultaneous movement, the BNP leader said the government resorted to attacking the students and filing false cases against them instead of finding a solution.
"We strongly condemn and protest against the attack on the anti-quota protestors by the Chhatra League and the false cases filed against them,” he said.
Asked for his reaction to the protesters' Rajakar slogans, Khosru said the students meant that they had been portrayed as Rajakars as they sought their rights.
He also said the government was trying to deprive the students of their rights by talking about conspiracy, BNP’s instigation, and branding the protestors as anti-liberation war forces and Rajakars.
The BNP leader alleged that the government has long been depriving the entire nation of their rights by talking about Rajakars, anti-liberation forces, and conspiracy.
“There’s no scope to capitalize on these things. This is not acceptable to the new generation... that is what they are saying. The new generation is trying to send out a message that no one can take away people's rights by capitalizing on these things (Rajakar tag),” he said.
Khosru said the current fascist and usurper government is not resolving the quota reform issue since it is not accountable to the country’s people.
A justified solution to this problem could have been found very easily had there been an elected government accountable to the people, BNP believes.
A delegation of the Gono Odhikar Parishad, led by its member secretary Faruque Hasan, had a meeting with Khosru and BNP vice chairman Barkatullah Bulu at the party chairperson’s Gulshan office.
The party also held separate meetings with the 12-party alliance, Gonotantrik Bam Oikya, Jatiyatabadi Samomona Jote, NDA, Gonoforum, Bangladesh People’s Party, LDP, and another faction of Gono Odhikar Parishad over the last four days and discussed their future course of action.