Dhaka: Bangladesh police Monday pressed charges against 89 members from former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in two cases related to the killing of a police constable last year.
Nur Hossain, an inspector in the Detective Branch (DB), submitted the chargesheets against the accused in the court of the chief metropolitan magistrate in Rajshahi city, 256 km west of capital Dhaka, Xinhua reported.
BNP joint secretary general Mizanur Rahman Minu, Rajshahi city mayor Mosaddek Hossain Bulbul and Mohammad Jahangir, assistant secretary general of BNP’s ally Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, among others, were charged in the case.
Of the two cases, one was filed for killing police constable Siddhartha Chandra Sarkar while another was filed under the Explosive Substances Act.
At least nine policemen, including Sarkar, sustained injuries after BNP-Jamaat men allegedly hurled a bomb at a police patrol van in Rajshahi city during a protest action Dec 26, 2013.
Sarkar succumbed to his injuries at the Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka the same night.
A BNP spokesman has termed the charges against the leaders and activists as “totally false and fake”.