‘BNP won’t take liability if anyone personally involved’

BNP senior leader Nazrul Islam Khan today said the party would not take responsibility if “any of its members” is found personally involved in two foreigners’ killing.

“However, if any leader or activist is implicated falsely to tarnish the image of BNP, the party will resist that,” he added.

The BNP standing committee member was speaking at a doa mahfil organised by Jatiyatabadi Krishak Dal at BNP’s Nayapaltan central office in Dhaka seeking early recovery of their leader Khaleda Zia.

The comments came a day after Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said Dhaka city BNP leader MA Quayum is the “Boro Bhai” who was behind the September 28 murder of Italian national Cesare Tavella.

The minister came up with the comment a day after Dhaka Metropolitan Police said three youths took part in the killing of the Italian in the capital's diplomatic zone. Without disclosing his name, the police also said a “Boro Bhai” hired the three to kill any white man living in the country.

At the media briefing on Monday, police paraded four youths, including the “three hitmen”, they claimed were arrested from Badda and Gulshan areas on Sunday.

Tavella was a project manager of Profitable Opportunities for Food Security (PROOFS), a project of Netherland based NGO ICCO Cooperation, since May. He was shot dead in Dhaka’s Gulshan diplomatic zone on September 28 evening by unknown assailants.

Meanwhile, BNP spokesperson Asaduzzaman Ripon, speaking at a press briefing around half an hour before Nazrul’s address, termed the home minister’s claim that MA Quayum is the “Boro Bhai” behind the murder of Cesare Tavella “baseless”.

Answering to a question, Ripon said such claims by the government are “politically motivated” to “harass” the BNP leaders.

He claimed that a fair probe would find no link of BNP leaders with the foreigners’ killing, adding that BNP does not believe in the politics of vengeance.

None of the four men held in connection with Tavella murder are BNP activists, Ripon further said.