BNP slates govt for fuel price hike

The BNP has criticised the government for the latest hike in oil prices and alleged that it (the government) was bullying the opposition into submission so that people stopped speaking about its failures, reports bdnews24.com. "The government is further heightening the people's sufferings by hiking fuel prices after every one or two months," the main opposition's spokesman, acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told his party workers on Friday. The BNP leader said, "They [the government] are just diverting people's attention from government's failures by detaining and torturing opposition leaders and activists. They are increasing fuel prices every month or two and have raised the prices once again even last night." Fakhrul was speaking at a demonstration of his party's volunteers' wing, the Shwechchhashebak Dal, in front of the party headquarters in city's Naya Paltan. He likened the government to a crooked village tout, evidently referring the recent round of fuel price hike, which was the third in a span of barely six months. The government raised fuel prices on May 5 and September 18. Last time prices of all kinds of fuel rose by Tk 5 per litre except furnace oil, which rose by Tk 8. Thursday's price hike, however, saw all kinds of fuel - kerosene, diesel, petrol and octane -costlier by Tk 5 per litre. Slamming the finance minister's bid to bring CNG price at par with that of diesel, the BNP spokesman said that compressed natural gas was introduced for vehicles during the BNP's 2001-06 tenure to save the environment. "But this move cannot be acceptable since it would further pollute the environment." Referring to the arrest and subsequent cases lodged against BNP's Narsingdi unit chief, also the party central education secretary Khairul Kabir Khokon, he said the move merely reflected the government's immaturity. Khokon was arrested early on November 2, hours after Narsingdi mayor Lokman Hossain had been shot by masked assailants in front of the Awami League's local party office in the evening of November 1. Lokman was declared dead in Dhaka Medical College Hospital later on November 1 evening. Referring to the two cases of vandalism and arson filed against Khokon, the BNP leader pointed out, "Khokon was there at the hospital when Narsingdi circuit house was being vandalised and in front of the Narsingdi police superintendent the intercity train was being set on fire." Fakhrul demanded Khokon's immediate and unconditional release. Khokon has already been given bail in Lokman murder case and the vandalism case. The bail plea in the arson case will be heard on Sunday.