New Age | Quota protesters attacked for fear of losing power: BNP

The main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, strongly condemned the attack on the quota opponents on Monday and protested against it.

In a statement, BNP general secretary Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said: “This violent attack is due to the fear of losing power. The people of the country are witnessing a scene where the legitimate demands of the students to remain in power are being suppressed in a bloody manner. This will go down in history as another violent chapter of Awami fascism. People, state, society, independence and sovereignty are never safe in their hands.”

Commenting on the attack on the students who were taking to the field demanding quota reforms, Fakhrul said: “The Awami League has erupted in jubilation at its (false) heroism in shedding the blood of the students along with the police and their armed gangs.”

He said the AL wanted to silence the population through terrible repressive methods.

“The Awami government is using a steamroller to crack down on the movement of pro-democracy political parties while suppressing the ongoing movement of general students,” he said, adding that the police and the Chhatra League had jointly attacked the students of various universities and educational institutions, including Dhaka University.

The government had lost control over the turbulent street movements of students in universities, schools and colleges across the country who were fighting for a just demand for quota reforms. Therefore, the state power had relentlessly suppressed the movement, which is a tradition of the Awami League, he said.

Alleging that the Awami League government has been constantly deceiving students about the quota, Fakhrul said, “It is the tradition of the Awami League to deceive people. The prime minister of the illegal government, after abolishing the quota in 2018, has reinstated it this year in a different way.”

Earlier in the day, BNP Standing Committee member Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury had said during a press conference at the BNP chairman’s Gulshan office that the government was pushing the country towards a divide without resolving the public jobs quota issue. This came after separate meetings of the Liaison Committee with the Bangladesh Student Rights Protection Council and a faction of the Gono Odhikar Parishad at the BNP chairman’s Gulshan office.

“A logical solution to this problem would be very simple if there was a government elected by the people. But this unelected government is leading the country towards division without taking the path of solution,” Khasru said.

“The outsiders have attacked the troublemakers on the Dhaka University campus and the government is pushing the country towards division without resolving the quota issue,” he said, adding that attacking the troublemakers will not resolve the quota issue.

Khasru protested against the charges brought against the protesting students and condemned the attack on them.

“The government supports the quota system because it has a vested interest in it,” he said, adding that even if the quota system is abolished, politicisation will continue to prevent talented people from being recruited for public jobs.