Khaleda, Tarique behind July ’24 uprising: Rizvi 

BNP acting Secretary General Advocate Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed has commented that BNP former Chairperson Khaleda Zia and the current party’s Chairman Tarique Rahman prepared the background and laid the groundwork for the historic July 2024 mass uprising led by students and the public.

He made the remarks as the chief guest at a commemorative meeting organised by the Shaheed Jehad Smriti Parishad at the National Press Club in the capital on Saturday. The meeting was organised to mark the 36th martyrdom anniversary of Nazir Uddin Jehad, one of the martyrs of the 1990 anti-autocracy movement.

Rizvi said that in 1990, young student leader Shaheed Nazir Uddin Jehad came from Sirajganj and sacrificed his life in the movement against autocrat Ershad. His sacrifice, along with the continuous nine-year-long movement and struggle, led to the fall of the autocratic government. The spirit of restoring democracy subsequently developed through that bloody struggle.

He said the 2024 mass uprising did not emerge in a single day. Despite enduring oppression in the form of numerous false cases, physical torture and imprisonment for a long time, Khaleda Zia maintained her uncompromising position, which laid the groundwork for democracy. Meanwhile, despite living abroad, Tarique Rahman built a far-sighted movement through his courageous leadership. The July 2024 mass uprising was the culmination of these efforts.

Criticising the previous government, the BNP leader said the defeated autocratic forces of 1990 and the defeated fascist forces of 2024 were linked by the same thread. He alleged that over the past 17 years, the country had witnessed looting, the depletion of bank funds, the laundering of thousands of crores of taka abroad, and a politics of enforced disappearances and killings. He added that collaborators of fascism were still lying low in various levels of the administration and society.