The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party said on Thursday that the government was involved in the incident that happened with the United States ambassador to Bangladesh, Peter Haas, in the capital’s Shahinbagh on Wednesday.

‘No one in Bangladesh, not even foreigners, is safe from the Awami League’s misrule. The government is involved in the harassment of the US ambassador,’ BNP’s acting office secretary Syed Emran Saleh Prince said at a press conference in the party’s Naya Paltan central office.

‘We strongly condemn and protest the incident that happened with the US ambassador,’ he said, adding that the image of Bangladesh abroad would be significantly damaged through this incident.

‘There is no democracy, no rule of law, no human rights in Bangladesh today. The maladministration that is going on here will emerge more,’ he added.

Claiming that the US ambassador was harassed with the help of the government, Prince said that the language spoken by prime minister Sheikh Hasina, AL general secretary Obaidul Quader, and the foreign minister after this incident with the US ambassador proved that they were involved in it.

On Wednesday, the US ambassador to Bangladesh, Peter Haas, hurriedly concluded his meeting with families of the victims of enforced disappearance in the capital’s Shahinbagh, following security concerns triggered by the gathering of some ruling party supporters surrounding his meeting place.

The US ambassador went to the house of Hazera Khatun, the co-founder of Mayaar Daak, a platform of the families of enforced disappearance victims, at about 9:00am and held a 35-minute meeting with the families of 24 disappearance victims before he hastily left the place following requests from his protection unit.

He rushed to the foreign ministry following the development and urgently met foreign minister AK Abdul Momen to express his concerns.

The US embassy in Dhaka later said in a statement confirmed that the ambassador and embassy staff concluded a meeting due to security concerns, adding that they took the matter to the highest levels of the Bangladesh government.

On August 4, 2018, the vehicle carrying the then US ambassador, Marcia Bernicat, was attacked by a group of people in the city’s Mohammadpur area.