Staff Reporter :
BNP leaders and activists have staged demonstration in front of the party central office at Naya Paltan in the city demanding its Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s release from jail.
The BNP activists held a sit-in program on Saturday afternoon as they could not march towards the National Press Club with their procession amid police obstruction.
“We tried to march towards the Press Club with a procession, but police did not allow us to leave Naya Paltan area,” BNP Assistant Office Secretary Saiful Islam Tipu said. Earlier in the morning, police cordoned off the BNP central office ahead of its pre-announced protest procession.
Law enforcers did not permit anyone to enter the office in the morning, BNP activists claimed.
Police officials said that they surrounded the Naya Paltan office as BNP did not take permission for the program that was scheduled to start at 2:00pm.
On Wednesday, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir announced the program at a press conference.
He said that they would bring out the procession from their Naya Paltan central office at 2:00pm on Saturday, but could not.
Asked whether they got permission from police for their planned procession, Fakhrul said, “No permission was needed for holding such a program.
BNP Chief Khaleda Zia has been in jail since she was convicted in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on February 8, 2018. She was found guilty in another corruption case later in the same year, though her party claimed both cases were politically motivated. She has been receiving treatment at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) since April 1, 2019.
