separation pain
Afroza Abbas, head of the BNP’s women’s wing, said about 100 women members have been arrested in the past 1-1/2 months.
“They are separated from their families, their children,” he said. “Those families are going through such trauma.”
Her husband, 74-year-old Mirza Abbas, who is among the BNP’s top decision makers, has been in jail since November 1, when police arrested him from a relative’s house, even though he was suffering from ailments such as diabetes and kidney problems. Are.
Although he decided to stay in his Dhaka home with his two sons and their families, it was not easy.
On November 20, Awami League activists threw two crude bombs at the house, although there were no casualties, said Afroza, who recognized the attackers from images captured on closed-circuit television, but said police did not arrest them.
Police said that after Afroza informed the media they informed them, but they arrested the man accused of paying for the attack.
“He was trying to get a post in the BNP,” regional police chief Sudip Kumar Saha said as the investigation continued.
However, Hasina has said that it is the opposition which is ready to kill for political gains.
“Any party can boycott voting but why do they burn people to death?” he asked at a recent rally in the northeastern district of Sylhet.
“If anyone interferes in voting or elections, people will reject them.”
The economy has slowed sharply since the Russia-Ukraine war sent fuel and food import prices soaring for the country of 170 million, which turned to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout. The IMF had approved a fund of $4.7 billion last year.
Zillur Rahman of the Center for Governance Studies, a bipartisan think-tank, said that while violent crackdowns on dissent were common in Bangladesh, the government’s recent actions were unprecedented.
“The mass arrests of all the major opposition players just before the elections are the kind of authoritarian cover-up that is almost comical in its nakedness.”