In response to a smear campaign against BNP leaders at a press conference held by one Jubayer Hossain Bappi at the Dhaka Reporters Unity, the Ishwardi upazila and municipal units of BNP organised a counter press conference in Pabna’s Ishwardi.
On Sunday, former Ishwardi upazila BNP president Shamsuddin Ahmed Malitha read out a written statement at the event held at the Ishwardi Press Club auditorium.
In the statement, Malitha condemned the “false and slanderous allegations” made against several Ishwardi BNP leaders – including himself, Zakaria Pintu (former municipal BNP general secretary who was sentenced to death in the Sheikh Hasina train attack case but later released), and Mehedi Hasan (upazila volunteer team member secretary) – during the August 1 press conference in Dhaka. He called the event a “conspiratorial and defamatory” act against BNP.
Demanding the unmasking of those behind the so-called press conference, Malitha alleged that Pabna district BNP convener Habibur Rahman Habib, driven by vengeance after Zakaria Pintu announced his candidacy from Pabna-4 in the upcoming parliamentary elections, has been spreading one falsehood after another. The Dhaka press conference, he claimed, was part of this smear campaign.
Malitha further stated that Zakaria Pintu was falsely labeled in the Dhaka event as a “terrorist, extortionist, drug dealer, and illegal sand trader” – allegations he dismissed as not only baseless but also extremely defamatory. He urged the party high command to investigate the matter and take appropriate action.
Leaders from Ishwardi upazila and municipal BNP, as well as its affiliated organisations, attended the press conference.
When contacted for comment, Habibur Rahman Habib – Pabna district BNP convener and advissr to BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia – told reporters over the phone, “I do not wish to comment on these matters. At this moment, I am blind, deaf, and mute.”