Fakhrul: We won’t take oath, won’t join parliament

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has said that the newly elected MPs from his party will not take oath and join parliament.

“The BNP and Jatiya Oikya Front have rejected the 11th general election results as we know it’s impossible to have a fair election under the incumbent government and Election Commission. It is out of the question for us to take oath,” he told reporters in Lalmonirhat on Monday.

“We will not take oath as MPs and will not go to the House too,” he added.

The BNP leader, who is also the Oikya Front spokesperson, made the remarks after visiting the grief-stricken family of Tojammel Haque, who was stabbed to death in the Khalaighat village in Sadar upazila’s Rajpur union at Lalmonirhat on December 30 — the day of the 11th general election.

Tojammel, 56, was the family welfare affairs secretary of BNP’s Rajpur union unit. He was on his way to cast his vote when he a group of miscreants attacked him.

His son Md Mostofa on January 1 had filed a murder case with the Lalmonirhat Senior Judicial Magistrate’s Court — naming nine people including Rajpur Union Parishad Chairman Mofazzal Hossain. On January 9, the case was transferred to the Sadar police station for investigation.

Mirza Fakhrul was accompanied by a number of Oikya Front leaders, including Abdul Kader Siddique, ASM Abdur Rab and Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury, and leaders and activists of BNP during the visit to Tojammel’s house and meeting with his family members.

They also handed over financial aid to Tojammel’s wife Golapi Begum, said BNP’s Lalmonirhat district unit General Secretary Hafizur Rahman Babla.

Fakhrul also said: “The people, BNP and Oikya Front have rejected the December 30 election results as vote robbery had marred the polls.”

“The new government does not represent the people,” he said, and reiterated the opposition’s call for cancellation of the election results and another impartial election.

‘22 people were killed across country on Dec 30’

Later in the afternoon, addressing a BNP rally in the Rajpur union, Mirza Fakhrul claimed that at least 22 people, who had supported the opposition, were killed across the country during the December 30 polls.

“The Awami League forcibly returned to power by using state machineries. General people were not even allowed to cast their votes,” he alleged.

“There have been countless enforced disappearances and murders in the past 10 years,” he added.

The other Oikya Front leaders also addressed the rally, organized by BNP’s Lalmonirhat district unit protesting the murder of Tojammel Haque.