People continue to suffer

We condemn, as we have done before, the continued violence caused by the 20-party alliance programmes of oborodh and hartals. The BNP programmes have gone on for more than 45 days without any sign of let up.  It is highly condemnable that even on February 21 the alliance did not call off the blockade. Not only that, a further 72-hour hartal has been called from today! We find such actions most reprehensible. We also condemn the total disregard for the plight of the 1.4 million students who could not sit for their exams due to the reckless, mindless and meaningless hartals.

We thus have a situation where the opposition is hell-bent on continuing with violence and the government is unwilling to relent on the suggestion of talks. The net victim of these two intractable positions is the people. Besides the harrowing tales of people's sufferings that we have been subjected to during the BNP-led movement, economic activities are slowly grinding to a halt.

We are sorry to note that nobody is thinking of the people. It is clear that BNP will not climb down from its position, and the government will stick to its position. Regrettably, the people are caught between an irresponsible opposition alliance which has become completely inured to public suffering and an insensitive government that is unwilling to take any step to end the stalemate. Who will then think of, for and about the people? How long can the situation continue without telling on the country and the people? Thus we feel that people's concern must take centre stage in any action.