'Appoint CG chief acceptable to all parties'

Sammilita Nagorik Andolon, a combine of seven professional and cultural organisations, organised the rally at Central Shaheed Minar. Around 75 organisations joined the rally to express solidarity with the demands of Nagorik Andolon.

Speakers, most of them university teachers, journalists, cultural personalities and civil society members, said an impartial chief of caretaker government and electoral reforms are the demands of mass people and a pro-liberation government is a must for a secular and democratic Bangladesh.

They urged all to launch a mass movement to press home the demands and to vote for a pro-liberation party in the next general election.

Hundreds of people from all walks of life thronged the Central Shaheed Minar to succeed the daylong rally.

Former Dhaka University (DU) Vice-chancellor Prof AK Azad Chowdhury, former DU Teachers' Association (Duta) president Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique, incumbent Duta general secretary Prof Dr Mohammad Akhtaruzzaman, Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists Secretary General Abdul Jalil Bhuiyan, Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee Convener Shahriar Kabir, Sammilita Nagorik Andolon Convener ASM Shamsul Arefin, Prof Sheikh Abdus Salam, Prof AKM Nur-Un-Nabi, Prof Abdus Salam, Ramendu Mojumdar, Principal Kazi Faruque and others spoke at the rally.