The Awami League government is filing tens of thousands of fictitious cases against leaders and activists of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to weaken the main opposition ahead of the upcoming parliamentary election, several senior leaders of the party have alleged.
For the past three years, BNP’s leaders and activists have confined themselves to their homes and held meetings indoors to avoid arrests.
Even so, the filing of cases against them has shot up recently, particularly from February when party chairperson Khaleda Zia was sentenced to five years in prison in a fraud case.
“The government’s main aim is to hold one-sided general election without people's participation,” BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said. “With this intention, the government is filing cases against our senior leaders.”
The number of arrests reached an alarming level after the September 1 rally held in front of the party's central office in Naya Paltan.
Called together to mark BNP's 40th founding anniversary, attendees at the rally took a fresh vow to continue the party’s movement to oust the current government and “restore democracy”.
The rally concluded, however, with the arrest of over 200 BNP leaders and activists - even though BNP claimed the event had been peaceful.
On September 30, BNP held another rally, this time at Suhrawardy Udyan, where it placed a number of demands and announced its future plans for the country if it returns to power.
A case was filed with Hatirjheel police station on the day, charging 55 BNP leaders of obstructing police from carrying out their duty and instigating “subversive acts”.
The accused leaders included BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, and the party’s National Standing Committee members Moudud Ahmed, Mirza Abbas, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, Nazrul Islam Khan, and Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury.
In total, BNP claims over 2.6 million of its leaders and activists have been implicated in false cases during the past decade.
Party leaders say in the ten years to September 2018, a total of 90,340 false cases were filed against 2,570,547 party people, of whom 75,925 were arrested and sent to jail.
During the past one month alone, the party has counted a total of 4,149 “fictitious” cases filed against 276,277 of its people, of whom 86,692 were named and 4,684 were subsequently arrested.
‘Naked, unlawful aggression’
BNP leaders have termed the arrests a “strategy of the government to suppress opposition activities” ahead of 11th parliamentary election, which is due to be held by the end of December.
“The aim of the continuous cases is to keep the opposition and its activists out of polls,” BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said. “The next election would be impossible if the cases filed against its leaders and activists are not withdrawn.”
A top BNP leader wishing anonymity said the ruling Awami League has “unleashed its naked, unlawful aggression” on BNP.
“Now most root-level leaders are either behind bars or on the run to evade arrest,” he said. “Already most leaders rarely venture onto the streets for fear of arrest. If it continues, a level-playing field for the next election will be impossible.”
BNP standing committee member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said the government’s ill tactics are part of a pre-election strategy to “suppress” the opposition.
The former law minister and current BNP standing committee member, Barrister Moudud Ahmed, said: “The government is planning conspiracy to hold unilateral elections by sending the opposition leaders and activists to jail.”
For its part, BNP has demanded the withdrawal of all political cases and the halting of all trials currently in progress, and an end to the filing of new cases between the start of the election schedule and the result of the polls being announced.
'Ghost' cases continue
BNP claimed that paralyzed, absent and even dead people feature among the new cases being lodged “every single day”.
On September 7, police filed a case against an 85-year-old paralyzed man named Abdul Khaleque Sarkar for holding a secret meeting to carry out subversive activities in Dhunat police station in Bogra.
Another case centres on BNP leader Khairul Bashar, who went to Saudi Arabia for performing Hajj on August 2. That did not stop police filing a case against him on September 2, while he was still absent from the country.
In another case, police accused Abdul Azizullah of blasting improvised bombs on September 5 this year during a hearing in Khaleda Zia’s case at old Dhaka Central Jail. Abdul Azizullah died in 2016.
Civil rights organization Shushashoner Jonno Nagorik (SHUJAN) Secretary Badiul Alam Majumder said the arrests will not help create a “congenial atmosphere” for holding a peaceful and fair election.
“The outcome from mass cases will not be an acceptable one for the national poll,” he said. “Law enforcers and the government must address the issue seriously (and) immediately.”
