DHAKA, 14 March 2004 — Angered by desertion of one of the founding fathers of the party and a lawmaker, student activists of ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party have claimed responsibility for foiling a rally of former President A.Q.M. Badruddoza Chowdhury and vowed to do so in the days ahead.
A senior leader of the Jatiyatabadi Chattra Dal, the student front of the BNP, has vowed to “punish” the former president for launching an alternative political platform and branded him a “traitor”, a day after a mob pelted him with stones and bricks.
“We have a party decision to resist Chowdhury and his supporters wherever we find them,” Azizul Bari Helal, general secretary of the JCD, told newsmen in Dhaka.
Asked to comment on JCD activists’ alleged roles in Thursday’s series of attacks on Chowdhury and his supporters, Helal said, “Our supporters were out on the streets and did what was necessary.”
The attacks on the key figures of the new platform and their adherents injured over 300 people and ruined a rally at Muktangan in Dhaka city, where Chowdhury was due to launch the alternative platform for politics.
Asked to confirm the identity of some alleged attackers whose photographs were published in national dailies, Helal ducked the point but said: “We have handed them (Chowdhury and his supporters) a minor punishment.”
Vowed Helal: “Rest assured, the JCD will spare none of them and make sure they are duly punished for betraying Ziaur Rahman (founder of the BNP). The JCD will not compromise on dealing with national traitors.”
On the apparent failure of the Dhaka City Corporation to make sure Muktangan is free for Chowdhury to hold the rally, as it gave him permission, Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka, also BNP city unit president, said: “It is not our responsibility.”
“The corporation doesn’t take that responsibility and nor does it have the mechanism to do so. It is the responsibility of law enforcing authorities,” Khoka said.
“No one needs permission for any program there,” Khoka said, adding the corporation gave Chowdhury permission as he had asked for it.
On why the corporation did not then allow Chowdhury to stage a rally there on March 9, Khoka said — in an apparently conflicting statement — the former president did not seek permission.
