Staff Reporter :BNP on Thursday termed the scrapping of the acquittal of its Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman in a money laundering case as a government’s plot to destroy the party.”The High Court (HC) has reversed the lower court’s verdict on Tarique Rahman’s money laundering case to ‘please the government. It is a political vengeance rather nothing,” BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told journalists at a press briefing at party’s central office at Nayapaltan in the city.Meanwhile, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir now in London in a statement said this verdict is a proof that the government wants to keep Tarique Rahman away from politics. The case is a politically motivated, he added.The High Court on Thursday sentenced BNP Senior Vice-chairman Tarique Rahman to seven years’ jail and fined him Tk 20 crore scrapping his acquittal in a money laundering case. The court also issued a warrant for the arrest of Tarique Rahman who has remained abroad for long.As soon as the news spread, leaders and workers of BNP, its associate bodies and student wing Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal rushed to the party’s Nayapaltan central office and tried to stage demonstration to protest the verdict.But when they tried to gather in front of the party office, police barred them and picked up at least 13 leaders and workers including Assistant Office Secretary Taiful Islam Tipu. Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said the lower court has acquitted Tarique Rahman in the case as there was no evidence regarding Tarique Rahman’s involvement in the money laundering case.”But the government appealed against the verdict by its subservient Anti-Corruption Commission to fulfil its desire and political vengeance,” he said.He also termed the verdict as the government’s blue print to destroy Zia family as well as the nationalist forces.”It is blue print hatched by the government to divert people’s attention into different directions,” Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said. He said the army backed emergency government had filed the case against Tarique illegally. He alleged that the HC did not take into cognizance the documents and evidence on which Tarique had been acquitted by the trial court.”The judicial norms have not been applied here,” he said.Rizvi also demanded immediate release of party leaders and activists arrested yesterday from in front of the party office. “We hope we will get justice from the Supreme Court. People’s confidence in the judiciary will increase if they get justice from court,” he said.
