The government has neither ordered law enforcers to bar city hoteliers from receiving guests nor asked transport owners to withdraw their vehicles, Home Minister Shahara Khatun claimed yesterday. The main opposition party sought the permission in an application on March 6. Asked if she would resign over the killings of journalist couple Sagar and Runi and Saudi embassy official Khalaf Al-Ali, she said, "Nothing has happened that I will have to resign. "However, I will never wait for even a minute if the prime minister wants me to resign. Meanwhile, after a five-day drama, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police yesterday gave permission for the BNP rally. Six helicopters will hover over and around the rally venue, a reliable source in the DMP told The Daily Star. Apart from police and Rab members, some 2,500 to 3,000 members of Border Guard Bangladesh will be on duty at various key city points today, the source added. "Law enforcers have been put on alert so that they [the opposition] cannot repeat incidents like the one on December 18 last year when the BNP carried out simultaneous bomb attacks at different city points and such as the one on September 27 when the Jamaat men swooped on the police," she said. However, many hoteliers told The Daily Star that they were indeed asked by the police not to receive any guest till today. Habibur Rahman, deputy commissioner of DMP, in a letter to BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi yesterday said the party could hold the programme at 2:00pm, but under 11 conditions. She also claimed progress on the Sagar-Runi killing case but declined to elaborate.
. |