The police attacked lawmakers and activist of the opposition BNP and its allies in Dhaka and elsewhere on the first day of their 48-hour general strike on Wednesday amid continued arrest of leaders and activists and imprisonment in trial by mobile courts for their suspected involvement in picketing. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party said that 400 activists, including the party’s former lawmakers Quamruddin Ehiya Khan Majlish and Nure Ara Safa, had been arrested at places across the country. Eighty of them were arrested in the capital.
The lawmakers said that when they walking down the road, a team of policemen, led by Harun-or-Rashid, additional deputy commissioner of the Tejgaon zone, suddenly started abusing them, which led to an altercation.
The police then attacked the opposition chief whip as Harun shouted ‘action,’ the lawmakers added.
Policemen in riot gear beat Farroque with truncheons, tore off his polo shirt and kicked him down on the ground.
As he tried to escape, the police chased him to the lawmakers’ apartments, captured him in the garage of a building and severely beat him again, the lawmakers said.
The injured Farroque was taken to the flat of lawmaker Syeda Ashifa Ashrafi Papiya and then admitted to the intensive care unit in United Hospital at Gulshan.
‘They kicked me down on the ground. I got injured in the head and the leg. You can still see the stains of blood on the floor of the garage of this building,’ Farroque said when he was staying in Papiya’s house.
The ICU in-charge in United Hospital, Asif Mahmud, said that Farroque was taken to the ICU after an operation.
‘He has injuries overall the body, especially in the legs. The legs have swollen. He feels acute pain in the head and at knee-joints. He is also suffering from respiratory problems,’ Mahmud said.
Harun-or-Rashid, who was a member on the Chhatra League central committee headed by Bahadur Bepari told, ‘As I saw him about to attack a vehicle, I grabbed him by the collar and asked him “Why are you doing this, Sir?” and he pushed me down.’
‘Then there was a scuffle. And I also got injured. I am now admitted to Police Hospital at Rajarbagh,’ he said, brushing aside the allegation of launching an attack on Farroque.
The BNP lawmakers planned to lay siege to the office of the speaker and lodge a complaint with him but later dropped the plan as Farroque needed to be sent to hospital. They later lodged a complaint with the speaker in the evening when the session was on.
The police picked up former lawmaker Nure Ara Safa, also the president of Jatiyatabadi Mahila Dal, and seven others at noon from Mohakhali when she was leading a procession.
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