Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami has been actively involved in running a disinformation campaign against Awami League leadership to cover up the involvement of party activists in arson attacks on buses and trains targeting voters during the blockade and grab power without polls movement.
Political observers believe decision makers in foreign governments should not take any such information peddled from the verified handles from the party. Alongside the party’s verified handle, there are two separate handles the party officially uses to peddle a certain narrative.
In addition to one of “Bangladesh Nationalist Party”, “BNP media cell and The Road to Democracy” are both handles endorsed by the party to weave churns and spreading smears, often targeted at foreign diplomats ostensibly observers believe seeking endorsement for violent spell of arson attacks and fire bombing let alone boycott polls campaign.
Barrage of lies to absolve Tarique from past crimes
On top of that, projection of party chief Tarique Rahman, who is a fugitive but still runs the party, from these handles is another adequate pointer that expose “narratives peddled from these handles did not hold substance rather tailored to get endorsement from diplomats in support of anti democratic movement.
With an undertaking on condition of staying away from politics Tarique fled the country to evade justice for the crimes including rampant corruption, funding militancy, orchestrating assassination attempt against then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina, he committed when her mother ruled the country for the last time between 2001 and 2006.
The world of crimes perpetrated by Tarique and his cronies when her mother ruled the country between 2001 and 2006 have been documented by independent foreign journalists, FBI, RCMP in Canada, let alone all agencies from his own country.
Stood convicted in several cases from colluding with militants to assassinate then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina through a grenade attack at her rally that left at least 24 activists dead and money laundering, testified by FBI agents, Tarique, was also found involved in building up a network of cronies extorting money from foreign companies and then pumping money in the cause of militancy, to solidify grip on power, according to an investigation carried by Canadian journalist David Monetro.
Yet the posts from these handles disregarded such substantive evidences and depict Tarique as “beacon light of democracy”, a key reason the world community should take cue and stop lending any credibility to any of the assertions posted from these handles.
Now let’s take a look at some of current wave of lies.
Soon after the story of an arson attack on a moving train—Banani Express– was reported days ahead of polls, BNP through its verified twitter handle slapped the blame on Awami League behind the carnage that saw at least four lives burnt to death.
“Awami Saboteours set fire on the train”, what exactly can be seen in a post appeared in the verified twitter handle from BNP, a brazen instance of trading blames and hiding the key fact that “in the run up to the attack, BNP men in groups rallied across the capital threatening to attack voters to derail impending polls at any cost”.
But a day later following the arrest of one of members who was involved in the 17 member network of arson attacks spilled the bins and media reports claimed reported involvement citing witnesses and survivors, BNP took a U turn and came up with another ridiculous claim that claimed from power car fire might be generated triggering the grisly fire incident.
The recent spate of denial of arson attacks through these pages stands as another mockery with pleas of hundreds of arson victims who held BNP Jamaat combine responsible for the attacks and demanded justice.
The extent of trading blames on Awami League reached to a certain extent that even triggered an official denial from a daily newspaper authorities after the same handle deliberately held Awami League responsible for an arson attack in a bus in last June.
On July 29, 2023, a tweet posted from BNP’s official account states “#Dhaka reports how a bus was torched by @albd71 (Awami League) agents!” A cropped excerpt from the report was added in the tweet but a detailed look at the report reveals no such comment was made by the driver that implicates AL activists in the arson.
Shawkat Hossain, Head of Online at the daily, later told journalists: “Readers are requested to authenticate information from our website instead of relying on posts shared by other sources on social media, attributing news published by us. The report published by us does not say who set the bus on fire.”
On December 7, 2022, another blatant falsehood was peddled against Awami League that gained traction quite a lot.
Even though BNP men locked in a clash with police officials in Nayapaltan area, the party’s official handles took photo of jersey cladded Ansar member, who rushed at the spot as additional deployment, and claimed “BCL caders in civilian uniform swooped on our activists in Naya Platan”.
Later the law enforcer clarified the air, saying “the sudden attack from BNP men led me like others to rush in the spot, so I could not change T shirt”.
https://bangladeshpost.net/posts/bnp-s-yet-another-propaganda-debunked-101039
Ignoring the prompt police action, arrest of 12 people, in connection to recent killing of a youth centring a dispute over the share of extortion money, BNP handles came up with outright assertions to project the killing a political one designed by Awami League while even name calling local leaders, another glaring categorization of trading blames.
