AL Infighting: Spare no one involved in killings

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has asked Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal to ensure the arrest of all those linked to killings that occurred during infighting within the ruling Awami League.

She gave the order at a meeting with the home minister at the Gono Bhaban on Sunday, and asked him not to spare anyone regardless of their political identities and positions, said sources.

The development came after two union parishad chairmen were shot dead in Munshiganj's Tongibari upazila and Khulna's Dumuria upazila  reportedly over internal feuds.

Contacted, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told The Daily Star that the PM has asked him to go for tough action against all those involved in the clashes and murders.

The issue of infighting was also discussed at a meeting, convened by AL General Secretary Obaidul Quader, at the party president's Dhanmondi office yesterday, where several ministers and AL leaders discussed the ongoing quota reform demonstrations and university teachers' protests over the new pension scheme.

According to meeting sources, AL leaders opined that the party's main concern is now infighting within the organisation and stressed the need to resolve it.

They said the meeting also decided that the party's top brass would sit with AL President Sheikh Hasina after her return from China and will seek her decision in this regard.

Many leaders at the meeting spoke of holding countrywide programmes by central AL leaders to bridge the gap between the partymen, which has widened over the last two polls, in order to bring discipline within the organisation, they added.

Infighting and killings have become almost regular within the Awami League as party-sponsored candidates and "party-independent" candidates, who took part in the January 7 polls, compete to establish supremacy.

The gap within the party leaders further widened following AL's decision to open the field for all partymen to contest the upazila elections without allocating the party symbol to anyone.

According to Human Rights Support Society, a rights organisation, a total of 1,004 incidents of political violence, including 781 incidents of post-polls violence, took place in the last six months, resulting in the death of 91 people. Of them, 70 were ruling partymen.