The standing committee of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist party has started an emergency meeting virtually on Friday morning to take decision on its way of holding December 10 Dhaka rally in the backdrop of picking up of the party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamagir and standing committee member Mirza Abbas allegedly by plainclothes earlier on the day.

BNP chairperson’s media wing member Shayrul Kabir Khan said that the party’s highest policy-making forum started the emergency meeting at about 11:20am.

A senior BNP leader said that the overall situation including detention of two senior BNP leaders, a day after arrest of hundreds of BNP leaders and activists following police attack at Naya Paltan that killed one in injured scores, and Saturday’s rallies might be discussed in the meeting.  

The development came a day before BNP’s December 10 rally in Dhaka.  The party is yet to announce the specific venue for the rally as they are yet to get clearance about using the venue.

Though the BNP had been pressing for holding the rally in front of the party central office at Naya Paltan and the police had been insisting to use Suhrawardy Udyan for the rally, a meeting was held between a BNP delegation and Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner Khandker Golam Faruq at the latter’s office in Dhaka on Thursday night.

Emerging from the meeting that lasted about two and a half hours, BNP delegation chief Barkat Ullah Bulu told reporters that the police offered them to hold their rally at the Mirpur Bangla College ground while the BNP requested the Kamlapur Stadium.