Bangladeshi party decries protesters after offices torched

DHAKA: A Bangladeshi party formerly close to the regime ousted by a student-led revolution said on Friday that such protesters were “splitting” the nation, a day after a mob torched its offices.

Jatiya Party chief Ghulam Muhammed Quader, a former commerce minister under toppled ex-leader Sheikh Hasina, said the offices were burned down in an arson attack by furious protesters late on Thursday.

“The country is now divided”, Quader told reporters in Dhaka. “They disregard everyone else, splitting the country into ´pure´ and ´impure´ factions... They determine who is culpable and who is not, leaving no room for justification. Once they tag someone as culpable, it´s final.”

Quader´s Jatiya Party was criticised for taking part in elections in January boycotted by the main opposition, and in which Hasina won a fourth consecutive term. Hasina´s rule saw widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killings of her political opponents.

Dozens of Hasina´s loyalists have since been detained. “They decide everything -- they can vandalise, set fire to our offices, and remain above the law,” Quader said, without specifying names.

Hasnat Abdullah, convener of Students Against Discrimination, the protest group credited with sparking the uprising against Hasina, had on Thursday urged supporters to march on the Jatiya Party offices. He called on students in a social media post to “annihilate the national traitor”.