Online Desk: Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader today said the Awami League government will facilitate and extend all-out cooperation to the Election Commission to hold a neutral general election. “We will make the upcoming national election free and fair in a peaceful environment,” he said while replying to a query about the newly announced US visa policy.

In a statement yesterday, the US said that it will impose visa restrictions on individuals and their immediate family members “if they are responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the democratic election process in Bangladesh”. Quader, also AL general secretary, also said that they would definitely resist those who obstruct the next national election.

He added that those who set fire to buses, vandalise those in the name of movement ahead of the election are engaged in political violence, and so they are the ones who will be in trouble. The minister made the comments this morning after paying homage to national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam on his 124th birth anniversary at his grave in Dhaka University.