BNP leaders slam govt for raid at Khaleda’s office

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir today came down heavily on the government over police raid at Gulshan office of the party chief Khaleda Zia.

“The raid proves that the government is intentionally trying to interrupt the democratic practice,” he said while talking to reporters at his ancestral house in Thakurgaon.

Terming BNP as the “largest political party” in the country, he said, “The police attack on the office of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, the chief of the largest political party and also the three times premier of the country, is a heinous act.”

“We strongly condemn the incident,” he said.

He also alleged that there is no democracy in the country.

Rizvi Ahmed, joint secretary general of the party, earlier in the day told journalists that the raid was conducted as part of a government conspiracy to humiliate the BNP chief.

READ MORE: Khaleda’s Gulshan office raided

The law enforcers found nothing during the raid, he claimed.

Earlier, a team of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) conducted the raid at the party office for one and a half hours starting at 8:30am.

The law enforcers turned off the CCTV cameras inside the office to hide their misdeeds, said BNP standing committee member Goyeshwar Chandra Roy.

“There is no tough programme of BNP at present, as it is busy with its organisational activities. So there is no reason to conduct the raid right now,” the BNP leader said.

Another BNP standing committee member Nazrul Islam Khan expressed concern over whether the police implanted anything inside the office to put the party leaders in danger.

“A government, which is not accountable to the people and is not democratically elected, can do any type of misdeeds,” he said, adding that they demand fair investigation into the incident.

BNP Joint Secretary General Rizvi Ahmed talking to journalists after police conducted a raid at the party's Gulshan office on May 20, 2017. Photo: Courtesy

BNP chief Khaleda Zia's adviser Zainul Abedin said, “According to the law, if there is any search warrant, then the officials should have to notify the concerned person and request the person to ensure a representative during the search. But in this case, no one notified us. They conducted the raid at the office without following the law. We will take legal steps in this regard.”