Bangladesh’s judicial process is transparent like Buriganga water: Rizvi

Bangladesh’s judicial process is transparent like the water of the Buriganga river now, said BNP senior joint secretary general Advocate Ruhul Kabir Rizvi on Wednesday.

Referring to the remarks of foreign minister Hasan Mahmud about Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus, he said, “Certainly, the judicial process is transparent, but it’s like the water of the river Buriganga.”
Water of the river Buriganga is usually considered heavily polluted, dirty and harmful.

Rizvi was addressing a press conference at the BNP central office at Nayapaltan in the capital on Wednesday (January 31).

Pointing to the cases against Dr Yunus on Tuesday, foreign minister Hasan Mahmud said, “The country’s judiciary highly is independent. Employees and workers lodged the case against Dr Yunus.”

Citing the case against Shajahan Omar MP, Rizvi said the cases in which Shajahan Omar gets bail, many BNP leaders and workers including the party’s secretary general are not given bail in those cases.

“Though they (dozens of BNP leaders and workers) are not given bail, one Shahjahan Omar was given bail in the same case after he sold out himself to Awami League. The agriculture minister’s comments now appear to be true. Will Obaidul Quader call Abdur Razzaque as an agent like the TIB?”

Criticising the government, the BNP leader said the government is sucking money from people. “Just after beginning of the first session of Jatiya Sangsad of the one-party led dummy government, it has been learnt that the pre-paid meter’s rent for domestic customers has been raised from Tk 100 to Tk 200. The government said the rent was raised to make adjustment between meter operation cost and maintenance cost. In fact, the meter rent has been doubled to punish people for witnessing the January 7 election as a circus instead of going to the polling centres.”

He further said the gas supply situation to the domestic level has deteriorated seriously. Most of the time, gas doesn’t exist at domestic level. But, the illegal government is sucking gas using customers various ways. Instead of ensuring the gas supply, the government has doubled the meter rent mounting the sufferings of common people, he said.

Mentioning the Transparency International report, Rizvi said the Berlin-based anti-graft watchdog has mentioned that Bangladesh is ranked 10th from the bottom. “TI said that Bangladesh’s low ranking essentially means that Bangladesh has performed badly.”

In this regard, Obaidul Quader on Tuesday said corruption is more or less prevails around the world, but the way Bangladesh is being blamed is not true at all. “The TIB speaks the same language as the BNP. This is why I am saying they are agents of the BNP. All of TIBs statements are biased. They always support the BNP and say whatever they want against the government,” Quader said.

Pointing to it, Rizvi said corruption may persist more or less around the world, but the Awami brand of corruption doesn’t exist anywhere in the world. “In a country where the cost of a pillow is Tk 27,000, cost of pillow-cover is Tk 28,000, and cost of a curtain is Tk 33,000, it is not necessary to say anything more. The Health Ministry indulged in corruption over the treatment equipment during Covid-19. Everybody knows what happens in the Railway Department. Nobody has forgotten about Tk 70 lakh in the house of an APS of the minister. Such a worsening scale of corruption doesn’t take place anywhere in the world.”