BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir. File Photo

DHAKA, June 25, 2025 (BSS) - BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir today said incidents of torture and death in the custody of law enforcers must be stopped.

He said this in a statement issued today on the eve of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

Fakhrul expressed his deep condolences and sympathy to the oppressed and persecuted individuals, nations, groups, castes and linguistic communities of Bangladesh and the world.

He said for a long time, people in many countries have been oppressed by tyrannical rulers, barbaric dictators and one-party rulers.

Stating that bloodthirsty dictators around the world have destroyed the ideals of world peace, security, democracy, human liberation and progress with terrible cruelty, the BNP Secretary General said, even today, violence and conflict are going on in different parts of the world over language, caste, ethnicity and community. 

Illegal powerful people are wreaking bloodshed and violence in society to spread immoral dominance, he said, adding people are being oppressed in various ways as victims of the inhuman revenge of the state. 

Although the world has advanced towards mechanical civilization, human civilization has not been able to advance much, said the BNP secretary general.

Fakhrul said in the July-August mass uprising last year, countless lives were lost and thousands of students and the people were crippled due to the horrific suppression policy of the then “fascist” government. 

“The whole world was shocked to see the brutal form of oppression of the past cruel and authoritarian Awami government,” he said.

In addition, for 16 years, countless people have been victims of disappearances, killings in alleged gunfights, and physical torture due to their state terrorism, he said. 

“The fascist government had no accountability to the people, taking all institutions in its hands and imposing the weight of one-party tyranny on the hearts of the people,” he said. 

Freedom of expression was brutally crushed by threatening, intimidating, and torturing the media and reckless oppression and torture were carried out on pro-democracy leaders and activists, including the BNP, he said, adding people across the country seemed to be living in the darkness of terrible anarchy.

Fakhrul said the AL ruling class erased the last traces of democracy through a series of oppression and torture. 

“The 'mother of democracy' BNP Chairperson and former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia was sentenced to prison in a false and fabricated case by an outrageous decree. She was harassed and tortured in various ways. The life of the imprisoned sick leader was made critical by not providing her with proper treatment. Such examples of state oppression are not easily found,” he said.

He said highest possible rehabilitation measures should be ensured for the victims of state oppression and their dependents to implement a just right to redress and fair and adequate compensation. 

He called upon the people who love democracy to resist all oppression in a united manner.