29th October, 2023.

The current Awami League government does not care about the lives and livelihoods of the general people because it is not elected by popular votes. As a result of the most severe inflation in recent memory, with prices of all essentials including rice, lentil, oil, salt, onion and vegetables on the up, lower middle class and low income people are forgoing meals. For the ordinary working people, life has become very difficult during this deep crisis.

Just as the fascist Awami League regime has bathed in blood by using the law enforcement agencies to launch a premeditated attack on peaceful rallies and meetings of all opposition parties including the BNP, the same way they are not hesitating to use the police to shoot and kill the ordinary working people when they gather to protest for a just a demand. The Awami ruling elite is a classic exemplar of how ferocious and ruthless a power-hungry regime can be. Precisely because the anti-people Awami regime is a patron of those who plunder state resources and then siphon their ill-gotten gains abroad that to them the right to a square meal of the poor is not important. They are indiscriminately using the state power to eliminate the oppressed protesters across the land.

I wholeheartedly condemn, protest, and denounce the brutal killing of a worker today (30 Oct) in Gazipur when the police fired without provocation on peaceful protests by workers for a wage rise.

I call for an immediate investigation of the incidence and a trial of those responsible. In addition, on behalf of BNP I extend full support to the workers’ demand for a minimum wage rise, and call for its implementation.

I offer my prayers for the departed soul of Russel, the person killed by the police, and also extend my deepest condolences to his mourning family.

Tarique Rahman

Acting Chairman of Bangladesh Nationalist Party