Health Minister Mohammed Nasim has said the government would take legal action against BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia as the main accused for ordering the killing of people in the name of blockade.
He said: “The killing of innocent people, especially women, children and labourers, should be stopped immediately.”
“To bring the situation under control, we will take legal actions against the BNP chief if necessary.”
The minister made the statement while talking to the journalists after visiting the arson victims at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Saturday.
Echoing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's statement on Khaleda Zia's arrest, he further said: “It will be logical to bring her under the purview of law as the accused of giving order [of the killings]; the law will take its own course.”
“The law enforcement agencies will look into the matter and they will take their actions,” he added.
In the latest spate of petrol bomb attacks by blockaders, some 40 people got burnt in the capital, Rajshahi and Bogra on Friday.
Doctors at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital said 29 of the burn patients, including two women, were admitted with 10-39% burn.
Blockade-related violence has killed at least 35 people over the last couple of weeks.
Hundreds of vehicles, including those belonging to law-enforcers, were burnt and attacked.
The BNP-led 20-party alliance has been enforcing nationwide non-stop roads and waterways blockade since January 5.
The BNP chairperson called the non-stop blockade on January 5 after she was barred from coming out of her Gulshan office.
BNP said she was “confined” but the government said she was free to go home.
Police kept in place extremely tight security around Khaleda’s Gulshan office for 16 days.
On January 12, the security was relaxed.
But Khaleda never came out; instead she said in a press conference that she was going to stay there and the blockade would continue unless the government took the first steps towards solution.
The government has announced rewards for catching anarchists responsible for violence during hartal and blockades.
