The BNP yesterday expressed its fear that the government might suppress the opposition on the pretext of launching a crackdown on extremists across the country.

"This [crackdown] is their [government's] strategy which they earlier used to suppress people's movement. We fear that they will again oppress the opposition [BNP and its alliance] in the name of conducting a crackdown," said BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

High officials of police on Thursday meeting decided to carry out the weeklong clampdown on militants throughout the country beginning yesterday morning. This announcement came on Thursday, five days after the murder of the wife of a superintendent of police in Chittagong.

The BNP leader made the remarks while talking to reporters after visiting BNP chairman candidate in Gaibandha's Erendabari union Azizur Rahman at the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation in the city's Aagargaon.

On June 2, unidentified criminals shot Azizur in the legs through a window while he was asleep at home just two days before the election to his union parishad, leaving him critically injured. Doctors later amputated his left leg.

Questioning the motive behind the police drive, Fakhrul alleged, "The incidents of crossfire or gunfight have risen sharply in the name of this operation as nine people have already been killed within a short time."

Referring to the attack on Azizur, he said this once again exposed that there is no democracy, the rule of law and public security in the country.

The BNP leader alleged that the Election Commission has completely destroyed the country's election system with its incompetence, loyalty to the ruling party and submissive role.

Fakhrul said there is no alternative to holding a national election under a non-party administration to get rid of the country's current situation. 

He also alleged that the government is creating anarchy in the country to cling to power.