18-party rally today in capital

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia will address an 18-party rally at the capital's Suhrawardy Udyan today.
Khaleda is scheduled to reach the venue at 3:00pm, an hour after the rally starts.  
This will be her second public address since October 25 last year, when she issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to realise the opposition demand for holding the election under a nonparty caretaker government.    
Today's rally is part of the opposition alliance's series of "peaceful" programmes that Khaleda announced on January 15. The Dhaka Metropolitan Police has given permission to hold the rally.
Similar rallies are expected to take place across the country today to "thank people for boycotting" the January 5 polls.
Meanwhile, the BNP observed the 78th birth anniversary of its founder Ziaur Rahman.  
Khaleda, flanked by senior party leaders and activists, placed wreaths at Zia's grave at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in the capital around 10:45am.
BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told journalists there that his party men were committed to restore people's voting rights by ousting the government, which grabbed power by holding “a farcical election".