BNP on Thursday turned down the verdict in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case against its chairperson and five others, and urged people to take to the streets to register their protest in a peaceful manner.

‘This verdict is an anti-people one. It has gone against people’s expectations. It was given only to appease one person. Justice is denied here,’ said BNP’s senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, reports the UNB.

Forty minutes after the announcement of the verdict, the BNP leader came up with the instant reaction at the party’s Nayapaltan central office.

Rizvi said the country’s people have rejected the verdict with hatred. ‘We strongly condemned and protested it.’

Asked whether their party will announce any action programme, he said, ‘I call upon all the BNP leaders and activists and nationalist forces to register their protests in a peaceful manner maintaining the democratic norms.’

Rizvi urged the party men to take to the streets but not to indulge in any violence.

He warned that the government may try to indulge in acts of sabotage to shift the blame on BNP leaders and activists.