Families and victims of arson attacks carried out by BNP-Jamaat people between 2013 and 2015 have called for justice against the loss of lives.
Under the banner of "Mayer Kanna" (Mother's Cry), a platform comprising victims and their family members participated in the protest rally, reiterating their pleas for justice.
They called upon global human rights organizations to take action and end the culture of impunity enjoyed by the "killers" associated with the BNP-Jamaat, said a media statement.
The rally drew attention to the silence of these rights bodies in response to their demands for justice, labelling them as "biased and one-sided defenders of the killers", says a press release issued on Wednesday.
Information Minister Hasan Mahmud, who attended the rally, criticized the BNP-Jamaat for introducing a culture of killing innocent lives to solidify their grip on state power. He vowed to bring justice to the families of the victims.
An aged mother named Runi Begum couldn't hold back her tears as she recounted the brutal ordeal that claimed the life of her son in 2014.
"My son came to Dhaka to purchase some jackets. As he was crossing the Shahbagh intersection, arsonists from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami lobbed petrol bombs, burning my son to death," Runi sobbed, calling for the BNP-Jamaat arson attackers to be brought to justice.
In 2013, Jahangir Alam, who was a superintendent of police at the time, was deployed at an outpost in Rajshahi when a group of BNP-Jamaat activists attacked him as part of a daylong strike called by the BNP-Jamaat.
"They thrashed my head with sticks, hurled brick-chips and helmets, leaving me gravely injured," Jahangir recounted, demanding exemplary punishment for the attackers.
Like Runi and Jahangir, several victims and their family members suffered horrific burns during the spate of arson attacks orchestrated by the BNP-Jamaat regime between 2013 and 2015. These attacks were carried out to bring down the government and undermine the war crimes trial.
Furthermore, family members of freedom fighters who later became armed forces officers and were executed by BNP founder General Ziaur Rahman between 1977 and 1981 without fair trials or even informing their families, gathered at a rally held in Shaheed Minar. They demanded a posthumous trial of General Zia, who became the country's first military ruler.
