BNP is spending illegal money against country: Quader

Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader on Monday said Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is spending the money it siphoned off abroad against the progress of the country and its people.

“They (BNP leaders) are using that illegal money to spread misinformation, rumours and confusion among the people and carry out terrorist acts and anarchy in the country,” he said in a statement.

Quader, also the road transport and bridges minister said, if the BNP does not see any possibility of implementing its conspiracies and machinations, it will not take part in the next general elections.

On the other hand, he said, convicted fugitive BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman is using the money, laundered abroad by the beneficiaries of Hawa Bhaban, to hatch anti-state conspiracy.

The AL general secretary said the BNP is trying to create anarchy in the country by deploying accused of criminal cases at field level.

The party is conspiring to oust a constitutional and elected government by creating anarchy in the country, he said, adding that in line with this, they are conducting armed demonstrations in the name of movement.

Similarly, the BNP is conducting anti-state propaganda to international organisations and friendly countries, he added.

Mentioning that the AL leaders and workers are addressing the situation with patience, Quader said AL President Sheikh Hasina is instructing the AL men to show tolerable attitudes by keeping patience and following the democratic harmony.

Capitalising on it, he said, the BNP is constantly instigating to destabilise the country’s political atmosphere by deploying its terrorist forces.

Blaming that the BNP is the guarantor and patron of killing, coup, conspiracy, graft, criminalisation, terrorism and militancy in the country, the road transport minister said the party was born in the womb of brutal dictatorship.

He said after the killing of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members on August 15, 1975 and four national leaders in jail on November 3, Zia illegally seized the state power at gunpoint and created an organisational circle of a criminalised party named BNP.

Quader said the BNP established a curfew-mark democracy in the country and at the same time, it put the Bangalee nation into an era of deep darkness by carrying out a steam roller of torture and oppression on the leaders and workers of other progressive democratic political parties, including the AL.

The AL men were killed indiscriminately during the reigns of BNP – 1991-96 and 2001-2006, while oppression was carried out on the leaders and workers of the opposition parties, he said.

Even, attacks were carried out on AL president Sheikh Hasina time and again targeting to kill her, the AL general secretary said, the terrible nature of such attacks was revealed through the grenade attack on August 21, 2004 under the patron of BNP chief Khaleda Zia and her son Tarique Rahman.

Misusing the state power, he said, such barbaric attack was not carried out in any place of the world.

But it was revealed from the statements of the BNP leaders, including BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, that they were not regretful at all to this end.

Quader said while in power, the BNP opened Hawa Bhaban and turned Bangladesh into a sanctuary of corruption and despotism.

“It institutionalised graft and made Bangladesh the world champion in corruption five times in a row, and nurtured terrorism and militancy, turning the country into a failed state. That is why the BNP is afraid of participating in any election,” he said.