Leaders and activists of ruling Awami League will stand guard at the city’s entry points to stave off attempts by opposition marchers to enter the city and hold a prescheduled rally today.
The party has already instructed its activists to remain “prepared with sticks,” stay vigilant from sunup to sundown and hand over potential intruders to the law enforcement agencies.
All associate bodies of the party including Jubo League and Chhatra League will take position near entry points, bus stops, launch terminals, train stations and major thoroughfares of Dhaka.
The order to prevent opposition activists from converging was expressly articulated during a meeting of the city unit of Awami League at the Bangabandhu Avenue yesterday.
Communication Minister Obaidul Quader, also presidium member of Awami League, termed BNP’s March for Democracy “farcical” and “undemocratic” and blamed its leaders for sustaining terrorism and militancy.
“BNP said it wanted to save democracy, but we want to save people and their wealth, and this is why we will stay alert on the streets,” he said, adding there was “no way” the opposition would succeed in organising its movement.
Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, general secretary of the city unit, in a speech full of bellicose rhetoric, urged the party men to be on guard in their respective wards.
“Strike anyone who presumes to enter the city so that they do not dare come to Dhaka ever again,” he said.
“Do not allow even a fly to enter, if it wants to. This movement of ours will go on as long as Khaleda Zia and her ally Jamaat-Shibir are in the country.
“If any leader or activist [associated with Awami League] fears being attacked, I would simply expel them and their committee would be dissolved. No activist or leader of ours can get attacked, can they?”
State Minister of Law Quamrul Islam spoke in the same vein, asking party leaders and activists to resist the “miscreants”.
“They want to turn Bangladesh into Pakistan. We all must be very careful so that they do not succeed.
“We have to be prepared with sticks tomorrow [today] as we did during the war of liberation in 1971. But this is not where we stop, we must be present in the field till January 5.”
