The Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Thursday announced its countrywide demonstrations for Saturday protesting at ‘mass arrest in the name of anti-militant drive.’

BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi at a briefing at the party central office, also urged the Supreme Court to issue ruling suo moto, asking the government to stop mass arrest and extrajudicial killings so that people could get rid of ‘fear’ and ‘terror’ in the month of Ramadan.

He told journalists that the protest rally would be organised by the city BNP.

Rizvi said the ongoing mass arrest and indiscriminate extrajudicial killings reminded people of the ‘operation search light’ launched in dreadful night of March 25 in 1971, by Pakistan army.

Rizvi said the so-called crackdown raised questions at home and abroad.

He alleged that the government made the country a ‘militant state’ only to cling to power.

BNP leaders Ahmed Azam Khan, Syed Moazzem Hossain Alal, Khairul Kabir Khokon and Abdus Salam Azad, among others, were present.