The junior law minister, Qamrul Islam, has said the cases against the senior leaders and activists of the opposition BNP were filed based on specific charges.
‘Those are not harassment cases. All are equal in the eyes of law. The law will be applied equally for all including the political activists,’ he said at a discussion at Dhaka Reporters’ Unity in the capital on Friday.
The police filed two cases on April 29 accusing several senior leaders of BNP-led opposition alliance over bomb explosions at the secretariat and torching of vehicles in front of the Prime Minister’s Office during the opposition-enforced countrywide lockdown.
The opposition enforced five days of countrywide shutdowns over the last two weeks protesting at the alleged ‘abduction’ of one of BNP’s organising secretaries M Ilias Ali.
Referring to those incidents, Qamrul on Friday said, ‘As they were hampering the people’s safety, the government had to take stern measures to ensure security of the people.’
The Awami League leader said the BNP enforced general strikes during HSC examinations which did not happen in the last 40 years.
He also hinted that the opposition could be behind Ilias’s disappearance. He also said ‘militants or personal vendetta’ could also be responsible for this.