Online Desk: Denouncing the arson attack on the Benapole Express Train that killed four passengers, BNP on Saturday said the government is playing with fire to make political gains by blaming the opposition.

“The government has again started playing with fire. They’ve resorted to the old game as they played in the past to hold a one-sided national election,” said BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.

He made the remarks while picketing in support of their party’s 48-hour hartal that began 6m today to protest against Sunday’s ‘dummy’ election.

Rizvi claimed that the ruling party tried to gain political advantage earlier by resorting to a hellish rampage of arson.

“People believe that yesterday’s (Friday’s) Benapole Express train fire and casualties were part of the government’s old game,” the BNP leader said.

As the people have come up with a massive response to the movement of the BNP and other opposition parties for democracy, he said the ruling quarter is playing with people’s lives by indulging in arson violence, and terrorism.

“The government has been hatching plots one after another to arrange the election like an authoritarian country, and putting the blame onto the opposition,” Rizvi alleged.

He said the government aims to stay in power by eliminating the opposition parties, especially BNP.

Stating that the arson on the Benapole Express Train was an ill-motivated, the BNP leader once again demanded an international investigation into the incident under the supervision of the United Nations.

On the first day of their 48-hour hartal, Rizvi along with some party leaders and workers brought out a procession from Shahbagh crossing towards Banglamotor in the capital around 7:3pm as part of picketing to enforce the shutdown.

At this time, the BNP activists set fire to tires and staged a demonstration there in support of the hartal.

A 48-hour hartal, called by BNP and like-minded opposition parties to protest the 12th parliamentary election to be held tomorrow, is underway. The hartal began at 6 am and will end at 6 am on Monday.

The night before the scheduled hartal, miscreants torched the four coaches of the Benapole Express train at 9:05pm on Friday, killing at least four people.

BNP along with nearly three dozen opposition political parties have been carrying out a simultaneous movement since December 10 last year to force the current government to quit and hold the 12th parliamentary election under a non-party neutral administration.

Many senior leaders, including BNP’s secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, were arrested while many others went into hiding in the face of a crackdown by the law enforcers.

However, BNP and like-minded parties enforced countrywide blockades for 23 days in 12 phases and hartals for five days since October 29 amid the incidents of violence like setting fire to public vehicles and passenger trains.