State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Mohammad Ali Arafat on Wednesday said everyone involved in violent activities cashing the quota reform movement must be brought to book following a thorough judicial probe.
"We have formed a judicial committee which will investigate thoroughly each and every single thing regardless of who is involved. We are committed to bringing everyone to book, who committed this kind of acts," he told reporters of foreign media working in Bangladesh after visiting the destruction site at the state-owned BTV headquarters.
Highlighting the government's efforts to find a peaceful solution to the quota reform movement, the state minister said, "We were going through a peaceful solution. We repeatedly appealed that whatever the students are demanding on the streets, we are also fighting for the same cause in the court".
The government earlier urged the agitating students to be patient and not to be hopeless, Arafat said, adding, in fact, from July 7 when the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court issued a status-quo on the subject matter, there was no quota in the country.
"So, when there was no quota, (students') demands were met. But still these kinds of chaos were created as we saw loss of so many lives and so many people got wounded. It was so unfortunate" he said.
Pointing that the government never wanted any casualty, the state minister said, "We sent out police force . . . but they were not allowed to open fire, because we didn't want any clash as a consequence of that any kind of casualties- injuries or deaths".
Referring to destruction carried out by the miscreants at BTV headquarters, he said, "When I went inside, it looked like to me a war zone. You can see the magnitude of attacks that took place here and the way they invaded inside this building and started burning". —BSS
