BNP on Sunday alleged that the government is pursuing a double standard policy over the quota reform movement as it has continued arresting innocent’ general students.
In a statement, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir also said opposition leaders and activists and quota reform movement activists are being tortured in police custody.
He voiced concern that the government arrested more than 9,000 leaders and activists across the country and resorted to multifaceted conspiracies, machinations and persecutions centring the student movement.
"On one hand, the government is saying that innocent students and leaders of the quota reform will not be tortured, on the other hand, ordinary students are constantly being arrested. Common people, children with disabilities and even employees of different professions are not being spared from such inhumane activities,” Fakhrul said.
He said though the government is arresting and repressing the students, it has not so far arrested even a single person of those who along with the members of law enforcement agencies openly shot and killed at Dhaka University and across the country. “Rather, the head of government is shedding crocodile tears for them.”
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He said the arrested sick senior opposition leaders, including the former MPs are being placed on remand for 5/7 days and tortured for 5/7 days like banned terrorists.
The BNP pleader said their party’s central leader Sultan Salahuddin Tuku, Dhaka city unit leaders Saiful Alam Nirab, Rafiqul Alam Majnu and Aminul Haque and many other leaders and activists have been physically tortured in police custody during remand tortured as part of the efforts to extract confessions from them.
He said the BNP leaders informed the court about the torture in police custody. “However, the court continued their remand at the behest of the head of government. Even inside the jails, they are subjected to brutal torture which is inhumane and against the law. Such torture in police custody is against humanity.”
The BNP leader warned that the government and the law enforcement agencies will have to take responsibility if anything untoward happens due to the ongoing torture on the opposition leaders and workers.
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Narrating the country’s current situation, he said the government has established a reign of terror over the entire territory of Bangladesh. “The number of killings of innocent students is increasing day by day, the number of casualties is getting longer.”
Fakhrul alleged that the government has a full list of the number of quota reform movement activists killed, but has not released it yet. “People feel that the list is not being published to cover up deaths.”
He called upon the government to step down, shunning repressive acts. “Otherwise the people of the country will form a united mass resistance.”