report in The Daily Star, Dec 24, 2023
BNP leader Abdul Moyeen Khan distributing leaflets in front of Jatiya Press Club yesterday. Photo: Collected
BNP senior leader Abdul Moyeen Khan yesterday said the party will be on the streets until the fall of the Awami League government, which they vowed to bring about peacefully.
“We’re carrying out the movement to get back people’s voting rights. We’re on the streets, and we will be there with this goal until this autocratic regime is unseated,” he said.
He made the remarks while distributing leaflets with the party’s call to boycott the upcoming polls among pedestrians in front of Jatiya Press Club.
Moyeen, along with leaders of Jatiyatabadi Muktijoddha Dal, freedom fighters’ wing of BNP, distributed the leaflets to drum up public support in favour of boycotting the polls.
Moyeen, a BNP standing committee member, said their party is committed to establishing a pro-people government in the country by removing the unrepresentative government in a completely peaceful and systematic democratic process like a non-cooperation movement.
“We are distributing leaflets to make people aware of their rights. We’re talking to people to encourage them to fight for establishing a representative government,” he said.
Earlier in the morning, BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi also distributed leaflets in the capital’s Rampura and Shahjahanpur areas.
Talking to reporters at Rampura, Rizvi said the government is arranging a farcical election by fielding dummy candidates themselves using the state machinery.
Meanwhile, police arrested two leaders of BNP and Jubo Dal from Sylhet City yesterday afternoon while they were distributing similar leaflets among people.
The arrestees are Emdad Hossain Chowdhury, general secretary of BNP’s Sylhet city unit. and Muminul Islam Mumin, president of Jubo Dal Sylhet district unit.
Mohammad Saiful Islam, additional deputy commissioner (media and community services) of Sylhet Metropolitan Police, confirmed the arrest and said they were accused in several sabotage cases earlier filed in different police stations.
They have been shown arrested in the cases and will be produced before court, he added.
Abdul Quiyum Chowdhury, president of BNP’s Sylhet district unit, said, “When we were handing out leaflets in the Laldighir Par area, some policemen in plainclothes confronted us and arrested the two leaders and three other activists from the spot.”
“We condemn such police acts in a peaceful political campaign,” he added.
https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/national-election-2024/news/well-be-the-streets-reclaim-voting-rights-3501741
