The ruling Awami League will take a tough stance if the BNP-led opposition parties enforce hartal or observe similar programmes against the government in the coming days.
AL leaders said the party would take to the streets to curb the opposition agitation. In no circumstances, they added, the BNP and allies would be allowed to “hamper the government's development activities’’. Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, AL Organising Secretary Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury said, “We will go tough against those who will try to hinder development activities. We won't spare anyone who will try to create anarchy in the name of movement.”
He added that the AL would stay alert in the streets to thwart BNP's antigovernment movement.
Khalid, however, said they believe “the opposition leaders who go into hiding and are not courageous enough to face charges won't be able to wage a movement to unseat this government".
The main opposition BNP has announced that after May 6 it would take up programmes even harsher than hartal to press the government for return of its missing leader Ilias Ali, withdrawal of “false charges" against its top leaders and reinstatement of the caretaker government system to hold the next parliamentary election.
In last 12 days, the BNP-led 18-party alliance has enforced five dawn-to-dusk shutdowns and staged demonstrations across the country to protest the disappearance of Ilias Ali and his driver.
Ilias, one of the organising secretaries of the BNP and a former lawmaker, went missing in the early hours of April 18.
AL high-ups say since the government has been trying its best to find out Ilias, there is no logic in calling hartal.
Besides, they add, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina herself has assured Ilias' wife Tahsina Rushdir Luna of doing everything necessary to trace her husband.
On the two cases filed against the BNP leaders on charges of involvement in blasts and vandalism during hartal hours, AL leaders said the senior BNP leaders must accept responsibility when one bus driver had been burned alive and many vehicles smashed or torched
by hartal pickets.
The ruling party leaders also said the charges had been brought against the opposition leaders as they had threatened to “set the country on fire".
About the opposition's demand for withdrawal of the charges, AL Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif said, “The law will take its own course and no one is above the law.”
On April 29, Tejgaon police filed a case against 44 leaders and activists of the BNP-led 18-party alliance for torching a vehicle near the Prime Minister's Office that day.
The accused include BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam, standing committee members Mirza Abbas, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy and Hannan Shah, joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, lawmaker Shahiduddin Chowdhury Anee and Liberal Democratic Party chief Oli Ahmed.
The same day, Shahbagh police accused 28 opposition leaders in a case in connection with two explosions on the secretariat compound. Mirza Fakhrul is the main accused in the case.