BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has criticised Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for what he called a deceptive display of "crocodile tears" during her hospital visits on Friday to see injured protesters of the quota reform movement.
In a statement Saturday, Fakhrul also slammed the Detective Branch for picking up three of the coordinators of the Students Against Discrimination movement from a hospital where at least two of them were receiving treatment, warning that such inhumane and barbaric actions would only deepen the ongoing crisis.
“Visiting students in the hospital after they have been shot and maimed, shedding crocodile tears and talking about assistance is yet another example of deceiving the people,” he said, making an oblique reference to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visits to two hospitals to see the injured victims of the recent nationwide violence.
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“So I would like to urge this regime to step down immediately by taking responsibility for all the killings, in a bid to free the country and its people from its curse,” the BNP leader said.
He alleged the government has shut down all communication systems, including railways, and imposed a curfew across the country to cling to power by force and evade public outrage.
In such a situation, Fakhrul said people are ‘starving without work’ while the prices of goods continue to rise beyond their purchasing capacity day by day. “The nation wants to get rid of this situation quickly and a political solution is necessary for it.”
He accused the government of choosing the "path of medieval torture" to suppress the opposition.
“The image that surfaced in the media of Gono Odhikar Parishad president Nurul Haque Nur being brought to court after remand is enough to stir any sensible person. He was tortured to such an extent during remand that he can no longer stand,” the BNP leader said.
He said Dhaka University students and coordinators of the quota reform movement Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud, and Abu Bakr Majumdar were picked up by the members of DB police from the Gano Shasthya Kendra hospital where they were undergoing treatment on Friday.
Besides, Fakhrul said the law enforcers also arrested Sayeed Khan, organizing secretary of the Dhaka Union of Journalists and the Dhaka correspondent of The Mirror Asia, from his home on Thursday night and repressed him overnight. “These incidents prove that the illegal fascist government has chosen the path of medieval torture. We strongly condemn and protest such incidents.”
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He said the government has retained power by adopting various strategies after illegally coming to power. “Cooked-up stories are being made by brutally repressing the arrested people.”
From the very beginning, the BNP leader said the government used the ‘ruling party goons’ to suppress the quota reform movement.
Apart from arresting opposition leaders, activists, and ordinary citizens, he noted that young students are also being arrested indiscriminately. “They’re being arrested even after showing their ID cards. The extent of the torture inflicted on the coordinators of the quota reform movement can be understood by observing the injury marks on their bodies,” he said.
In the statement, the BNP secretary general also condemned the government for spreading ‘misinformation’ about his party’s acting chairman Tarique Rahman.
"Being jealous of Tarique Rahman's popularity, Awami League leaders, including the head of government and some members of the law enforcement agencies, are presenting false, fabricated, baseless, fictional stories against him. But the country's people do not believe it," he said.