Keeping BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia confined to her political office for the third consecutive day, police yesterday arrested her party's second-in-command Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir. Detectives picked up Fakhrul as he came out of the Jatiya Press Club in the afternoon with pro-government journalists protesting his stay there. The BNP acting secretary general had been at the press club for arou
nd 24 hours. Immediately after his detention, he was shown arrested in cases filed for instigating the December 24 clash at the capital's Bakshibazar and torching a lawmaker's vehicle, and over countrywide blasts and vandalism on January 4-5, said Assistant Commissioner Shibli Noman of DMP (Ramna zone). Fakhrul was taken straight to the Detective Branch headquarters. Now facing more than 70 cases, he had earlier been arrested thrice. Advertisement Protesting the arrest, the BNP is enforcing a 24-hour hartal from 6:00pm yesterday in his home district Thakurgaon. Police, meanwhile, filed around three dozen cases in at least 16 districts accusing more than 17,000 people, including 1,787 named BNP-Jamaat men, over the violence on the first anniversary of the controversial January 5 polls. The BNP and its allies, which dub January 5 as the “Democracy Killing Day”, brought out protest marches in several districts and clashed with AL men and police on Monday. The ruling Awami League celebrated it as the "Victory Day for Democracy". Police also sued over a hundred pro-BNP lawyers for attacking law enforcers and barring them from discharging duties on the Supreme Court premises on Monday. Of the accused in the case, filed with Shahbagh Police Station, 11 were named, Inspector AK Saidur Haque Bhuiyan told The Daily Star last night. He declined to go into details for the “sake of the investigation”. As of filing this report last night, Khaleda Zia could not leave her Gulshan office with the main gate locked and two police vans and a water canon parked outside. While Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and some ministers claimed that Khaleda had not been confined, a number of policymakers of the government and the AL yesterday indicated that the BNP chief might face restriction on her movement for a few more days. Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu even said the BNP chief could be arrested in connection with torching of a CNG-run auto-rickshaw at Kazipara in the capital on December 28. "The home ministry is considering filing a case against her over the matter,” he said at a press conference at his office yesterday. Supplies for those, confined to Khaleda Zia's Gulshan office since Saturday night, being sent inside the office. Photo: Sk Enamul Haq If a murder case could have been filed against the contractor concerned for the recent death of four-year-old Jihad trapped down an abandoned deep well at Shahjahanpur Colony, a case could be also filed against the BNP chief for the arson, Inu said. But State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said that no decision has yet been taken to file a case against Khaleda, and that he does not know anything about Inu's statement. The security in front of the BNP chief's office was tightened again yesterday morning though it begun to slacken off after Monday evening. Three leaders of Tablighi Jamaat were asked to take permission from the Deputy Commissioner's Office when they tried to enter the office. “We came here to invite the BNP chairperson to Biswa Ijtema on January 9, but police asked us to get permission from the authorities,” said Abdur Rahim, one of the Tablighi Jamaat leaders. Confined to her Gulshan office since Saturday midnight, the BNP chief made several efforts to come out Monday afternoon, but law enforcers locked the main gate from outside and stood guard in several layers. She wanted to go to the party's central office at Nayapaltan, where leaders and activists were asked to gather for a rally to denounce the January 5 one-sided parliamentary election. Cops also used pepper spray to disperse the party leaders and activists waiting inside the gate. After the police action, the former prime minister announced a blockade of roads, railways and waterways across the country from yesterday. The programme was called also to protest her confinement and demand a fresh general election under a non-party administration. Food Minister Qamrul Islam yesterday reiterated that the BNP men will never be allowed to take to the streets. "The streets will be under our control," he said at a meeting of city AL leaders and activists at the party office. KHALEDA ILL The BNP chairperson has reportedly been suffering from respiratory problem for the second day “due to the impact of pepper spray” police used on Monday on the premises of her Gulshan office. “She fell ill after police used the poisonous pepper spray towards her vehicle in her presence yesterday [Monday]. She is now suffering from acute respiratory problem,” said Maruf Kamal Khan, Khaleda's press secretary. “She is showing vomiting tendency, coughing frequently and suffering from headaches with her eyes watering,” he told journalists at the Gulshan office last night. When BNP leaders and activists started banging on the BNP chief's office gate from inside, police used pepper spray, leaving two journalists and at least eight female BNP leaders ill. Khaleda was in her car at that time. Later, police used the spray again when Khaleda was talking to reporters standing on a bench on her office premises. Maruf said Khaleda was given oxygen and nebuliser to address her health problems. CASES, MORE CASES In between October 2013 to January 2014, police filed more than 4,500 cases against the BNP-led 20-party alliance members. More than three lakh opposition men, named and unnamed, stood accused in those cases, according to sources in courts and police administration. In connection with Monday's violence, at least 17,664 people, including 1,787 named BNP-Jamaat men, have been sued on charges of arson, vandalism and assault on police. In Chittagong, police filed two separate cases against 388 BNP-Jamaat leaders and activists. Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, president of BNP's Chittagong city unit; Shahadat Hossain, its general secretary; Aslam Chowdhury, Chittagong north district unit convener, and Enamul Hoque Enam, south district unit vice president, were among the accused, police said. Out of the 388 named accused, a total of 297, including Aslam and Enamul, were arrested during and after the clashes on Monday. The arrestees were produced before a Chittagong court that sent them to jail yesterday. In Chapainawabganj, a total of 9,211 BNP-Jamaat-Shibir men have been made accused in three separate cases, including one for murder. Of the accused, 211 were named. On Monday, a BNP activist was killed and 10 people, including two law enforcers, were injured during a clash between police and Jamaat-BNP men at Kansat-Gopal Nagar intersection of Shibganj upazila. The murder case was filed against 115 named BNP-Jamaat men and 3,000 unknown people. The two other cases were filed for assaulting police and obstructing them from discharging duties. In Rajshahi, police accused 10 BNP leaders, and some 3,000 unnamed BNP-Jamaat activists in three cases filed with Puthia Police Station over Monday's violence. The 10 named accused include Abu Sayeed Chand, Charghat upazila chairman and the upazila's BNP president, who led a procession before the violence. One of the cases was filed for the murder of Mojiruddin, vice president of a ward unit BNP of Maria union at Charghat. He was killed when law enforcers opened fire on BNP-Jamaat activists during a clash on Monday at Baneshwar Bazar. Police filed two other cases for obstructing law enforcers from discharging duties and blasting crude bombs them.
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