Govt has evidences on BNP’s hiring lobbyists abroad: Hasan Mahmud

Awami League joint general secretary and Information and Broadcasting Minister Hasan Mahmud today said the government has evidences that BNP hired lobbyists abroad to work against the country.

“They signed agreement with the lobbyist firm using the address of its Nayapaltan office. The foreign minister has already taken initiative to inform different government departments and offices to investigate how the money was transferred there from Bangladesh,” he said.

Hasan said this while replying to a question from journalists after a view-exchange meeting with the leaders of Chittagong University Journalists Association in Chattogram Circuit House auditorium, said a press release here in Dhaka.

About the letter written to the United Nations against Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), he said, “Of the 12 human rights organisations that wrote a letter to exclude RAB from UN peacekeeping missions, all but two or three are just name-only ones. We’ve not heard their names before.”

Hasan said this letter was given on November 7 last year. “Why did it come to the media suddenly after more than two months? There is a political motive behind it,” he said.

He said BNP has been conspiring against Bangladesh continuously. The BNP has been conspiring against the country by hiring lobbyist firms, investing their illicit money in lobbyist firms, tarnishing the image of the country, disrupting export trade, and hindering the prosperity of the country, he said.

"In fact, the BNP has no confidence in the people. So, they have chosen the path of conspiracy and hiring lobbyist firms abroad is one of the main tools of that conspiracy," he said.

He said now a question has come here that whether a political party, which hatches such conspiracy against the country, should get rights to do politics in the country.