DHAKA, Dec 19, 2023 (BSS) - A total of 91 eminent citizens, including a former chief justice, former bureaucrats, retired major generals and university teachers, today called for preventing ill-efforts being made to foil the January 7 general elections.

In a joint statement, they said, as part of the democratic process, the 12th national elections is going to be held in the country in line with the constitution achieved through a long bloody struggle.

The Election Commission (EC) and others concerned have been working to make the polls free, fair, peaceful and participatory but a vested quarter is trying to foil the elections, the citizens said.

In continuation of that, unruly BNP men killed a cop in the capital on October 28 in the name of mass rally and even BNP workers carried out attack on the residence of the chief justice, they said, adding that the BNP-Jamaat men also burned a sleeping transport worker dead.

The eminent citizens said a terrible train accident took place in Gazipur on December 12 as the terrorists of BNP-Jamaat removed rail tracks, leaving a passenger killed and many others injured, while in latest incident, saboteurs set fire to Monhanganj express in between Airport Rail Station Tejgaon Station on December 19 (today), burning four innocent people alive.
The main aim of these sabotage was to halt the democratic progress of the country by foiling the next general elections, they said, calling upon the country's people to make the next polls a success by exercising their voting rights.

The signatories of the statement included former chief justice Hasan Foez Siddique, former vice chancellor of Dhaka University Prof Dr AAMS Arefin Siddique, former principal secretary Abdul Karim, Mahbub Uddin Ahmed, Bir Bikram, Professor Muntassir Mamoon, former governor of Bangladesh Bank and Emeritus Professor Dr Atiur Rahman, former inspector general of police Muhammad Nurul Huda, former ambassador Munshi Foyez Ahmed, former chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission Iqbal Mahmood, former principal secretary Dr Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury, former vice chancellor of Dhaka University Dr Md Akhtaruzzaman, Professor Imtiaz Ahmed of Dhaka University, major general (Retd) Alauddin Mohammad Abdul Wadud, major general (Retd) Abdur Rashid and major general (Retd) Salahuddin Miazi.