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Govt plans to crush street agitation

Reshuffle in police, cases against opposition leaders in pipeline

SHAIKH NAZRUL ISLAM
The government is planning crackdown on street demonstrations by the opposition, a home ministry official said.
"We have specific information that the opposition parties will stage demonstrations from January and authorities are ready to crack down on anti-government agitation on the street," a home ministry official said, on condition that he not be named.
"A set of steps has been taken to ward off the opposition move-
ment," another official of the ministry admitted. The government would have the streets occupied by pro-coalition activists when the opposition would stage agitation and other programmes, he elaborated.
Filing of cases against opposition leaders and activists will be another strategy. A list of activists and leaders organising antigovernment agitation has been made to charge them, sources said.
Previous cases against opposition leaders may be revived as well, the home ministry official went on.
A reshuffle in the police administration is also on the cards to take the opposition head on in the city. New police personnel loyal to the ruling coalition will be drafted in Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) from outside, the sources added.
"We no longer can go soft on the opposition since they are involved in 'subversive activities'," another home ministry official said, preferring to remain unnamed. There are score of instances that the opposition is trying to create anarchy for political mileage, government sources added.
Rumour has it that the opposition would launch their movement from mid-December following a series of programmes marking the martyred intellectuals' and victory days.
"We are going to do to them what they had done to us when we were in opposition," a ruling BNP leader said.
The Awami League had cracked down on the BNP and opposition leaders and activists just after one year in office. Top four opposition leaders were accused of sabotage although the charges were found false later on.
Police attacked a meeting of the then opposition BNP presided over by Khaleda Zia in Paltan in 1997, in a prelude to widespread persecution of the opposition for the next four years, the BNP leader added.
Even former home minister Mohammad Nasim had gone public that the government would not allow the opposition to stage demonstrations and that he would have the streets occupied by progovernment activists.