BNP to submit memos to DC offices today

Alongside continuing its mass signature collection campaign, BNP is going to submit memorandums to all the Deputy Commissioner (DC) offices across the country, including the capital, today (Sunday) demanding the release of its chairperson Khaleda Zia, reports UNB.

Speaking at a press briefing at BNP's Nayapaltan central office on Saturday, party senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said party leaders and activists will gather around Dhaka deputy commissioner's office at Old Dhaka on Sunday and submit the memorandum around 12 noon.

He said their party leaders and followers in all other districts will go in processions to the DC offices and submit the memorandum at their convenient time between 9am to 5pm.

The BNP leader alleged that though they are holding peaceful programmes, the government has kept arresting their party men all over the country.

He claimed that around 4,725 leaders and activists of BNP and its associate bodies have so far been arrested since January 30.

Rizvi demanded the government immediately release them.

BNP on Thursday announced a fresh round of peaceful countrywide protest programmes, including collecting signatures from mass people across the country on Saturday, submitting memorandums to all the deputy commissioner offices on Sunday and staging demonstrations in all the district towns and metropolitan cities, except Dhaka, on Tuesday.

A special court convicted former prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia and sentenced her to five years' imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case on February 8 last. She was then sent to the old central jail at Nazimuddin Road in the city.

Earlier, the party observed a token hunger strike on Wednesday while formed a human chain in front of the Jatiya Press Club on Monday and staged a sit-in programme in front of the party's Nayapaltan central office on Tuesday.