BNP calls for judicial probe

The BNP yesterday demanded judicial probe into all the recent extrajudicial killings, including that of Golam Faizullah Fahim who had carried out a machete attack on a Madaripur college teacher.

It, however, did not say anything on such killings committed during its rule after the formation of the Rapid Action Battalion in 2004.

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Extrajudicial killings in the name of "crossfire" became prevalent following the formation of the Rab. 

Faizullah, 18, was killed in a “shootout” with police on Saturday, four days into his capture while fleeing after the attack on the teacher. 

Briefing journalists at the party's Nayapaltan headquarters, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said, “The government is carrying out the extrajudicial killings in a planned way to cover up the truth and the identity of the perpetrators of secret killings.”

After the briefing, this correspondent asked him whether the BNP demanded investigation into all the extrajudicial killings since 2004. In reply, he said he was talking about the recent killings in the name of "crossfire".

About the killings of Faizullah, and Shariful, prime suspect in blogger-writer Avijit murder case, Fakhrul said, “It naturally raises a question in the public mind whether the government itself is behind militancy."

Shariful was killed in a "shootout" with police early yesterday.

The BNP leader also alleged it was an evil design of the government to blame the opposition activists for the killings so that they can suppress them.

He accused the government of playing with fire over a big problem like militancy.

“They're [government] now trying to avert their responsibility by shifting the blame on the BNP and other opposition parties without any investigation.”

Fakhrul said over 13,000 people were arrested in a weeklong combing operation. "Of the arrestees, the government claimed that they've identified only 179 as militants. So, the rest are common people. For whose interest and why they are being arrested?”

Rejecting the prime minister's allegation that BNP's Senior Vice-chairman Tarique Rahman, now in London, issued a death threat to British MP Tulip Siddiq, he said Sheikh Hasina brought the allegation only to mislead the people.

Earlier on Saturday, Hasina criticised the British government for giving shelter to Tarique, alleging that he has links with the killings in Bangladesh and also with the issuance of the threat to Tulip, granddaughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.