A restriction unexplained

A book launch that BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia was supposed to attend was suspended as the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel management cancelled the venue reservation “on the instructions of an intelligence agency”.
Scheduled to be held at the hotel's Winter Garden yesterday from 3:30pm to 6:00pm, the event had been organised by the pro-BNP research body Group-2009.
The opposition leader was expected to arrive at 4:00pm to launch five books penned and edited by journalist Shafik Rehman. The books deal with life and work of late president Ziaur Rahman and Khaleda Zia.
On Monday night, the hotel authorities demanded that the contents of the books be made known to them and then scrapped the permission after a half hour's conversation, the organisers said during a news briefing at the Jatiya Press Club yesterday.
The booking was made on March 20.
Contacted by The Daily Star, Mahbubul Alam Hanif, special assistant to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said Khaleda had called the programme despite knowing that a cultural show and dinner would be held at the Ruposhi Bangla yesterday in honour of foreign guests who were in the city at state invitation.
Interestingly, as per the official programme schedule, the events that Hanif, who is also a joint general secretary of the ruling Awami League, was talking about were held in the ballroom of Pan Pacific Sonargaon.
When corrected, he said, “Then I don't know anything.”
Home Minister Sahara Khatun, however, said the authorities had not given any instructions to police or any other agency about the book launch.
“Police did not obstruct the event,” she told reporters after a programme at the Rapid Action Battalion headquarters in the city.
The hotel authorities said they had merely conveyed the “higher authorities' decision” to the organisers.
“It's a state-owned hotel. I was in charge at the time. I just conveyed the message to them [organisers] as per the higher authorities' instructions,” Mosharrof Hossain, catering sales executive of Ruposhi Bangla, told The Daily Star.
When contacted, a senior National Security Intelligence (NSI) official said the authorities had not given any instruction about postponing the programme of the opposition leader.
On February 27, the organisers booked the Sonargaon Hotel ballroom for yesterday and paid the charge in advance.
But on March 18, the hotel authorities expressed regrets, saying the prime minister's office wanted the ball room for the same day, said Group-2009 President Saiful Islam at the urgent press briefing.
They then opted for the Ruposhi Bangla Winter Garden.
Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, BNP's acting secretary general who was also present at the press conference, vehemently protested the booking cancellation and called upon the government to make it clear which intelligence agency had forced the hotel authorities to cancel the reservation.
“The government must explain who were behind the decision. It is now a question whether the government has taken the shelter of intelligence agencies.”
The government has once again proved that it believes neither in democracy nor in people's freedom of opinion, he said.
He said the government had become weak as it had lost public support. “It seems that non-political persons are now running the country. And it's not clear whether the advisers are the citizens of Bangladesh or India.”
The BNP leader said the party is concerned at the government restrictions on and obstructions to the opposition leader's movements over the past couple of days.
“Don't block democracy and politics. It won't bring any good,” he asked the ruling alliance.
Shafik Rehman said the government could have replied to his writing by using pro-government writers, journalists, television or radio instead of obstructing the launch of his books.
Urging the country's intelligence agencies not to carry out government orders, he said the AL administration has become “illegal”.
The future of this government is zero, zero and zero, Shafik Rehman added.