Hefajat inspires BNP
The volatile situation centring a radical Islamist groups' long march today has sent a sense of happiness to the BNP-led opposition camp as its leaders believe it would favour their anti-government agitation.
However, the opposition yesterday criticised the government for what it said the administration's interference in Hefajat-e Islam's Dhaka long march.
Infuriated by obstructions to its Dhaka long march, Hefajat-e Islam leaders have threatened to wage a movement against the government. They might announce agitation programmes, including nonstop hartal, from their rally at Shapla Chatter today.
Hefajat called the long march demanding punishment of some bloggers who according them were defaming Islam and Prophet Mohammad (Pbuh). At least 23 organisations called a hartal to resist the long march today and Gonojagoron Mancha called for a road, rail and waterway blockade.
If the Islamist organisation finally goes for hartals, some senior BNP leaders say that they would try to cash in on the situation by supporting Hefajat hartals and calling for supplementary hartals and road blocks to oust the government.
The BNP-led 18-party alliance may even postpone its April 10 rally in the capital from where BNP chief Khaleda Zia was supposed to announce the alliance's next course of agitation to oust the government, opposition insiders said.
At a meeting at BNP chairperson's Gulshan office yesterday, the opposition alliance agreed in principal to defer its April 10 rally, if Hefajat-e Islam went for nonstop hartals, said Fazlur Rahman, joint secretary general of Islamic Oikya Jote.
The decision would be finalised after consultation with Khaleda Zia.
"If they [Hefajat] enforce nonstop hartal, we will sit to decide our April 10 rally in the changed situation," Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, a member of the national standing committee of BNP, told The Daily Star.
The BNP-Jamaat-led alliance has already planned to make April a turning point in its one-point movement to oust the government.
M Hafizuddin Khan, former adviser to a caretaker government, said the country was passing a critical juncture. "The overall situation is vulnerable. Any major disaster may take place anytime."
However, Awami League Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif said, "The government is not worried about the situation as people do not support radical Islamists' religious fanaticism."
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