Gulshan office raid groundless: Khaleda
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia yesterday alleged that police had raided her Gulshan office on Saturday without any grounds.
“Using police to raid opposition party office without any cause is exactly the kind of nasty politics we want to remove from the country,” she tweeted from her verified page.
Meanwhile, Awami League (AL) General Secretary Obaidul Quader said the police raid at BNP chief's office was carried out following intelligence reports.
“I asked the home minister and the IGP about the sudden raid on Khaleda's office and they told me that police had conducted the raid based on an intelligence report,” he told journalists emerging from an AL meeting in the capital's Dhanmondi.
Police on Saturday raided Khaleda's Gulshan office to seize "materials" stored there "for carrying out anti-state and subversive activities". They found nothing during the more than two-hour-long search. The raid was conducted following a "mysterious" general diary filed with Gulshan Police Station on Friday. Police did not disclose the identity of the person who filed the diary. In a formal reaction, BNP yesterday alleged that police had raided the office illegally.
“…we think police did the task [raid] unlawfully and shouldering the responsibility, the home minister should resign from office,” BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told a press briefing at the party's Nayapaltan headquarters.
The BNP leader alleged through this raid the government has proved once again that it does not believe in democracy.
BNP Vice Chairman and Supreme Court Bar Association President Zainul Abedin said, as per CRPC, before making a search, "the officer or other person about to make it shall call upon two or more independent and respectable inhabitants of the locality in which the place to be searched is situate or of any other locality if no such inhabitant of the said locality is available or is willing to be a witness to the search, to attend and witness the search and may issue an order in writing to them or any of them so to do."
“But none was notified before the search. This is illegal. We will take our next step after sitting with the senior leaders in this regard.”
Amir Khoshru Mahmud Chowdhury, party's standing committee member, alleged that the raid was basically a reflection of the government's “nervousness”.
“The government is losing its political ground. They do not believe in systematic and peaceful politics. … 'Vision 2030' made them nervous. They are instigating us as they do not believe in peaceful transition of power,” he told The Daily Star.
Protesting the Gulshan raid, BNP has staged demonstrations in some districts.
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