Bangladesh Army Military Police personnel disallowed the entry of National Citizens’ Party Chief Organiser Hasnat Abdullah into Dhaka Cantonment on September 23 as part of an earlier decision that barred his entry into one of the city’s most secure districts.
The unsavoury incident occurred when Abdullah sought entry into the cantonment from the Mirpur Gate side near the Kochukhet area. Bangladesh Army sources said that when the Military Police guards stopped him from entering the sensitive zone, a brief altercation followed. The cantonment’s second entry point is the Jahangir Gate in the south.
Abdullah then stepped back to speak with a few Army officers over his mobile phone, but this did not help. The MP guards stood their ground. Abdullah remained at the place for about 20 minutes before he took the decision to leave the location.
Informed sources said that he did not seek entry to meet any Army officer but wanted to use the relatively congestion-free roads to reach another location outside the cantonment.
Several phone calls to Abdullah did not elicit any response.
The Army top brass has been quite cut-up with Abdullah and other NCP functionaries – formerly key activists of the Anti-Discrimination Students’ Movement – ever since they spilled out details of an alleged meeting with Bangladesh Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman on the prickly issue of formation of a so-called “refined Awami League”.
The report of an alleged meeting between Gen Zaman and at least two student activists, Sarjis Alam and Hasnat Abdullah, supposedly at the former’s official residence inside the cantonment, was narrated by Abdullah on his Facebook page.
The FB post claimed that there was a move afoot to form a “refined Awami League” involving former MPs such as Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Shirin Sharmin (ex-Speaker), and Sheikh Taposh.
Abdullah claimed that on March 11 afternoon three of the students were presented with the plan by some Army officials inside the cantonment. The conversation between the student leaders and the Army officers revolved around the issues of some seat-sharing arrangement and rehabilitation of the Awami League.
ALSO READ: Three Americans checked into Dhaka’s ‘Westin Hotel’ on Sept 20 & 23; names, details not disclosed
Responding swiftly to this Facebook post, the Army headquarters denied that neither Abdullah nor the other student activists were pressured on the issue of rehabilitation of the Awami League. Refuting Hasnat’s claims, the Army said that the meeting with Gen Zaman took place at Abdullah and Sarjis Alam’s initiative.
