Babar backs cop action

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State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar threw his weight behind the cops yesterday, a day after the ‘unprovoked’ police action on Awami League lawmakers Mohammad Nasim and Asaduzzaman Noor during the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) siege programme, arguing that they were in fact forced to go into action.

“No lawmaker is above law,” Babar told reporters at his office yesterday. “The police had no choice but to go into action.”

The opposition activists joined the programme with sticks and brickbats despite the police announcement reminding them about the Dhaka Metropolitan Police ban on gatherings, he said.

He however admitted that neither former home minister Mohammad Nasim nor Noor had any stick or brickbat in their hands that could provoke the law-enforcement agencies.

“But breaking the barricade, the opposition activists started to hurl brickbats at the police. They went into action after making announcement several times,” he said. “What the police did was to control the law and order situation. They had no other choice then.”

On Tuesday, The Daily Star along with most of the print and electronic media however reported in detail how the police suddenly launched attacks on benign opposition gatherings without provocation. Undergoing treatment at Bangladesh Medical College Hospital, a badly battered Nasim is still in a state of unconsciousness. The condition of Noor has improved well at Holy Family Hospital.

Babar meanwhile argued that the same incident would have happened in a reverse situation with the AL in power and BNP out there to lay siege to the PMO office in a militant mood.

He however regretted the attack on the two opposition lawmakers, terming the incident ‘unexpected’.

Asked why frontline opposition leaders like Saber Hossain Chowdhury and Nasim are being attacked, Babar dodged a direct reply. “Those who attacked were constable-level policemen.”

“You know, two policemen were killed recently. Their hearts are broken, and they (police) might have lost their senses,” he quipped.

On the possibility of the police’s carrying out a government order for such attack, he said, “They did not wait for order.”

Asked repeatedly whether the government would take any step against the policemen responsible for attacks on Nasim and Noor, Babar said they were examining the whole situation.

But talking to the BBC Bangla Service, he played down the possibility of legal action against the police and went on to say that the “protesters themselves broke the law.”

Opposition leader Sheikh Hasina recently instructed her workers to take on police, and it might have encouraged opposition activists to break the law, he predicted.

On the AL’s demand for a parliamentary committee to probe attack on Nasim and Noor, he said, “We’re thinking what to do.”

Babar also observed that the gap between the opposition and the police widened further.

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