BNP yesterday urged the international community to take effective steps to prevent India from building the Tipaimukh dam and asked the government to adopt prompt measures to stop India implementing the project.
"We as members of the United Nations are urging all and if necessary we will seek the international community's cooperation through formal letters and we will not accept the Indian attempt to build a dam on the Borak river," BNP Secretary General Khandaker Delwar Hossain said at a press conference at the Jatiya Press Club yesterday.
He said it is the duty of the government to protest and mount pressure on India so that it stops the project. "The Tipaimukh dam will be the life and death issue for Bangladesh but the Awami League government has failed to voice protest as it has no moral strength," he said.
Strongly criticising the government for keeping mum, he said the BNP would do everything it can to stop the controversial Indian project if the government fails to take effective initiatives.
Former water resources minister and party Vice-president Hafiz Uddin Ahmed read out a written statement regarding the project and steps taken against the project by the BNP-led government when it was in power.
"All governments except the Awami League-led government protested the Indian project. Khaleda Zia's government took a firm stance against the project from the very beginning. The BNP government protested twice verbally on April 16 and May 18, 1992," he said.
Hafiz, who was acting secretary general of the party's so-called reformist faction, attended for the first time any programme with Khandaker Delwar Hossain, once his rival in the party, since Delwar was made secretary general on September 2, 2007.
"Experts and people believe that the proposed dam will be turned into a death trap for Bangladesh that is why we demand the government's formal protest against the project," Hafiz said, adding that people will take all necessary steps if India continues with the project ignoring the interest of Bangladeshi people.
Providing minutes of Joint River Commission (JRC) meeting, Hafiz said his Indian counterpart promised that they would provide all data before going to implement the project but India is yet to share any information with Bangladesh about the project.
Former Dhaka University vice-chancellor Moniruzzaman Mian and BNP leader Rizvi Ahmed were also present.