The real motive behind the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami's series of hartals is to delay the proceedings of the war crimes tribunals, eminent war crimes researcher Shahriar Kabir said yesterday.
The hartals have little to do with the issue of a non-party caretaker government, the main demand of the BNP-led opposition alliance, he added.
Delays in trials occur as lawyers of Jamaat leaders remain absent at the International War Crimes Tribunal during the shutdowns, he said, addressing a memorial discussion organised by Bangladesh Jubo Moitree at Liberation War Museum in the capital.
The meeting commemorated Rasel Ahmed Khan, a leader of Jubo Moitree, youth wing of Bangladesher Workers' Party, who was allegedly killed by BNP-Jamaat activists on October 28, 2006.
"The moment Jamaat started politics in Bangladesh, they started killing people. Their killing started in 1979 when they began to organise as a party, and the list of victims grows every day," said Shahriar, also executive president of anti-war criminal forum Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee.
"We must keep vigil to make sure that no other deaths occur in the hands of Jamaat-Shibir," he said.
Condemning the recent attacks on important institutions of the state during hartal, Workers' Party lawmaker Fazle Hossain Badsha said it seemed as if the BNP were at war against the state. "We must occupy the streets to resist the anti-liberation forces," he added.
The discussion was presided over by Jubo Moitree President Mustafa Alamgir Ratan.