Dhaka: BNP senior leader Moudud Ahmed on Saturday warned that the consequences will be very dire if the government applies force on the demonstrating students seeking safer roads.

‘You (govt) are saying you’ve accepted the students’ demands as those are justified. But the organisation which is under a minister has enforced a strike to put transport workers against adolescent boys and girls. What would be more notorious plot than this?’ he said.

Speaking at a discussion, the BNP leader further said, ‘We would like to clearly say if you apply force on the students to suppress their movement, the people of Bangladesh will put up a resistance against it.’

Sammilita Chhatra Forum arranged the programme at the Jatiya Press Club demanding the release of BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia and other party leaders, reports the UNB.

Moudud, a BNP standing committee member, urged the government to stop the suppression and repression on students. ‘You won’t be able to suppress the student movement with repressive measures.’

He condemned the government’s ‘plot to resist students’ by a heinous transport strike programme.

The BNP leader said people are going through serious sufferings due to the transport strike enforced by a minister-backed organisation. ‘The government is responsible for it.’

He also criticised the government for what he said letting loose Chhatra League and police to attack the students as it did in the past to suppress those waged the movement demanding reform in quota system.

The BNP leader thinks the student movements are the manifestation of people’s pent-up anger against the government. ‘No student and the country’s people have any confidence in the regime.’

Moudud blamed the shipping and road transport and bridges ministers for anarchy in the transport sector and the bad shape of roads.

He also demanded the resignation of the two ministers.