On October 28, 2023, the entire country witnessed in horror the sheer scale of brutality inflicted on the streets of the capital by BNP Jamaat men to foil the polls. The violence was inflicted on voters at the behest of BNP acting chief Tarique Rahman, who earlier announced to capture power with street battles, not through ballots and foiling polls.
From butchering police officer, to ransacking the residences of the Chief Justice, vandalizing police hospital and launching arson attacks on buses are hallmarks of violence unleashed by BNP Jamaat cadres have been widely reported by national and international outlets. CCTV footages have also captured that BNP cadres actively took part in the violence flared up on streets.
But within a year down the line, BNP’s secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir seems to go on an overdrive to whitewash the involvement of his party’s leaders in the violence so that the arson attackers and killers can enjoy impunity.
“Our people were not involved in the violence ensued on that day”, added Fakhrul on June 24 in a show of peddling brazen lies to mislead the world.
In what appears yet another denial drama, Fakhrul also went on to claim his party chalks out activities to defend democracy while in reality the party repeatedly tried to thwart polls and intimidate and obstruct voters from exercising their rights to vote.
But while peddling lies, Fakhrul did not manage to pull off consistency.
Just a day later, the BNP leader yet again retorted to earlier stance of bringing down the government without polls, reiterating the previous stance of his boss Tarique Rahman’s call for no to polls and decide the fate of the country on streets.
“We have to bring down the government”, threatened Fakhrul on July 27 taking a U turn from his earlier stance.
Fakhrul’s complete silence on the disgraceful episode of holding a press conference at the party office introducing one US citizen as advisor to Joe Biden, who was flanked by other BNP leaders, further proved this episode was staged with green light from top leaders.
Earlier Fakhrul was slammed for what they say his “unapologetic stance” and “patronage” to a local BNP leader who publicly asked party activists to “fight to assassinate” the prime minister and “finish off” Awami League.
Not only Fakhurl, other top BNP leaders are also engaging in promoting lies to cover up their track record in violence. Even senior leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi caught on camera while leading picketers on streets, hours later the same Rizvi denied his involvement.
On the other hand, minority rights leaders earlier slammed Gayeshwar Chandra Roy for his claim that Hindus are gradually “leaving the country due to lack of security”.
Political observers have called out this drama as another wave of BNP’s systematic disinformation campaign to project the party as democratic and brand the party as a democratic one, an exercise further exposes reliance on rumour and disinformation by BNP.
This latest attempt adds to a long list of lies and disinformation exhibited by BNP Jamaat combine for years including faking cases of human rights.
In addition to staging denial, lies emerged as another core feature of BNP’s politics as the party has been pumping money into foreign lobbyists to feed policymakers of foreign government with a barrage of disinformation to different foreign governments.
Even bizarre as it sound, the party’s founding chief the first military dictator Gen Ziaur Rahman has been described as beacon light of democracy and efforts were on to absolve Tarique from past crimes like assassination plot against Sheikh Hasina colluding with militants known as 21st august grenade attack in 2004.