They are criminals
Muhiuddin defends BNP office raid, arrests
“Police went to the BNP office to discharge legal duties; they then identified criminals there and detained those who were directly or indirectly involved in crime,” the minister said at an Ekattor TV talk show yesterday evening.
Over a hundred BNP leaders and activists, including acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, were arrested during a raid at the Nayapaltan office of the opposition party. Police say they have recovered 12 bombs there.
Telecast live by private television channels, the three-hour raid came shortly after the BNP-led 18-party alliance at a rally in front of the party office called for a nationwide hartal today.
The rally was organised to protest the “mass killing by police and ruling party activists”.
MK Alamgir said the persons arrested from the BNP office would be produced before a court for trial under Anti-Terrorism Act-2009.
Replying to a question, he said the police took the action under Dhaka Metropolitan Police Ordinance, enacted during the tenure of BNP founder Ziaur Rahman.
The ordinance gives magistracy power to the DMP commissioner and the commissioner’s associates, he noted.
Secondly, the minister said, according to the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), police have the jurisdiction to take any step anywhere to stop a criminal from committing crimes.
MK Alamgir also said it could not be accepted that BNP would store cocktails at its office to attack people and police would sit idle even after knowing about it. “If we do not make arrests, violence will be intensified and anarchy will spread further.”
Regarding the opposition-sponsored shutdown, he said, “They [opposition] have no moral or legal right to call such hartal.”
Courtesy: The Daily Star
