DHAKA, 15 March 2004 — The former lawmaker Abdul Mannan is paying a heavy price for his desertion of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Late Saturday night two bombs were thrown at his Gulshan residence.
Mannan resigned from Parliament and the party on March 10 to join former President A.Q.M. Badruddoza Chowdhury’s Alternative Political Stream.
The police said two unidentified persons hurled the bombs from a taxicab at about 10 p.m. and sped away. No casualties were reported.
Alleged activists of ruling BNP and its front organizations also forced the closure of eight businesses and stopped garment export of Mannan’s business in the southeastern port city of Chittagong.
Mannan, a retired army major, blamed the attacks on the key ruling party activists, saying they were bent on ruining his businesses to punish him for resigning.
He told reporters the attackers closed down businesses with about $10 million investment, leaving some 4,500 people unemployed. Witnesses said youths with ties to Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, the student arm of the ruling party, carried out the bomb attack.
He alleged that activists of the JCD and Jubo Dal, the youth front of the BNP, barged into five of his garment factories at Bayezid Bostami in Chittagong and stopped export of 12 truckloads of garments worth about $200,000.
“They waylaid trucks carrying garments that were to be shipped to the United States,” he said, adding: “They also raided three garment units at Dewanhat and asked the staff to stop work and steer clear of the factories.”
Mannan also alleged that customs officers went to his Sun Crest Cola depot in Chittagong and asked staff to produce VAT and tax returns. The officers left with some papers and seized 4,500 cases of Sun Crest.
The previous night, a series of blasts rocked two of Mannan’s businesses in Chittagong city.
His office at Banani also came under attack on March 11 after he was made member-secretary of the 12-member convening committee of Chowdhury’s alternative party. Mannan was a vice president of the Dhaka city unit of the BNP.
The young Turks of the ruling party are apparently incensed at what they see as Mannan’s betrayal, saying he used his power as a state minister for textiles during the 1991-96 government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to develop his own garment business empire. “He is a beneficiary of BNP rule,” a frustrated BNP student activist said.
Meanwhile, the BNP has started threatening disgruntled parliamentarians.
The high command of the BNP, which leads the four-party ruling alliance, believes that early action will save the party from further desertion of lawmakers and disillusioned national and regional leaders, political sources said.
