Raid on Gulshan Office: BNP may hold rally May 24

The BNP is likely to stage a rally in the capital on May 24 protesting the raid on party Chairperson Khaleda Zia's Gulshan office on Saturday.

If the party is denied permission for the rally, it will bring out processions across the country the next day. 

Though there is no formal announcement yet, insiders say leaders discussed the plans at the party's standing committee meeting at the Gulshan office last night with Khaleda in the chair.

Emerging from the meeting, a standing committee member told The Daily Star that the rally will be held at the Suhrawardy Udyan. If the party doesn't get the permission, processions would be held in the capital and other parts of the country on May 25.

Wishing anonymity, the BNP leader also said the standing committee members discussed Saturday's raid. They believe the raid was a “provocation by the government" and it was aimed at spoiling the “election atmosphere” so that the BNP boycotts the next national polls like it did in 2014, he added.

Another standing committee member said the party will demand an explanation from the government for the police raid.

In a surprise move, police raided Khaleda's Gulshan office on Saturday to seize "materials for carrying out anti-state and subversive activities". They found nothing during the over-two-hour-long search.

"We did not get the things for which we carried out the search,” Salahuddin, inspector (investigation) of Gulshan Police Station, told The Daily Star.