The National Citizen Party (NCP) has demanded that the government bear the full cost of treating a Habiganj district leader of Jatiya Chhatra Shakti, Alif Chowdhury, and quickly arrest the attackers.
The NCP member secretary, Akhtar Hossain, made the demand at a news conference on Thursday afternoon after visiting Alif — a young man who lost an eye in the NCP’s July march in Habiganj — at the National Institute of Ophthalmology and Hospital (NIOH) in the capital.
Akhtar Hossain said the Habiganj district leader Alif Chowdhury had lost one eye in the attack. He was under treatment in hospital after an operation. According to doctors, his damaged eye would never recover. He was also seeing blurred in his other eye, which was therefore also at risk of damage.
He said that, not only in the Habiganj incident, about an hour before the news conference the NCP’s convoy had also been attacked in Sylhet. At the time the NCP leaders were not on any political programme but were returning after visiting the graves of those killed in the July uprising and meeting members of their families. Their convoy was attacked on the way back.
The NCP member secretary said the party’s leaders and workers had been attacked in Habiganj on Wednesday. The opposition chief whip and women members of parliament present had also faced harassment and attack there. He alleged that Chhatra Dal, Jubo Dal and BNP leaders and workers had similarly attacked NCP protest programmes held in Kurigram, Dinajpur, Chattogram and various other places in protest at the Habiganj incident.
He said a terrible and gruesome political environment had been created in the country. Just as attacks and repression were carried out against the opposition during the Awami League’s time, the present BNP government was walking the same path, he said. To establish real democracy, attacks, cases and repression against opposition political parties must stop.
He also said there had been no violence or show of weapons at the peaceful programme in Habiganj led by the party’s convener, Nahid Islam. Even so, police had blocked the road with barricades and trucks and halted the leaders and workers’ advance. He said the present situation was like the way opposition programmes were obstructed under the past fascist rule.
Setting out three demands to the government, Akhtar Hossain said the government must bear the full cost of Alif Chowdhury’s treatment and compensate him and his family. The identified Chhatra Dal, Jubo Dal and BNP attackers involved in the attacks in Habiganj and elsewhere must be arrested immediately and brought to justice. And security must be ensured for the NCP and all democratic opposition political parties in the country to carry out their organisational activities, including the July march, without hindrance.
The allegations against the BNP, Chhatra Dal and Jubo Dal are attributed to the NCP. No response from those parties was included in the news conference.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report