Tribunal’s trial should not be hampered: Akhtar National Citizens Party (NCP) member secretary and Rangpur-4 constituency MP Akhtar Hossain said that the government must ensure that the trial process of the International Crimes Tribunal is not disrupted.

National Citizens Party (NCP) member secretary and Rangpur-4 constituency MP Akhtar Hossain said that the government must ensure that the trial process of the International Crimes Tribunal is not disrupted. He told reporters this on Thursday (February 19) after coming to observe the trial process at the International Crimes Tribunal and inquire about giving his own testimony.

Akhtar said, we will humbly appeal to the BNP government and the ruling party - that the pace of the trial of the International Crimes Tribunal should not be slowed down in any way. The trial process of the tribunal should not be hampered.

Akhtar urged the Prime Minister, as the elected government, to provide all kinds of technical assistance required to speed up the trial process of the tribunal.

He said that the government must take all-out steps to ensure that this trial is not hampered in any way and that all the verdicts of the trial are implemented.

Asked if he had any doubts that the tribunal's trial might be obstructed, Akhtar said, "You have seen that this election was two elections at the same time. One was the election of members of parliament, the other was the election of the referendum. If you look at the sequence of this election, the formation of the interim government - the interim government was not in the constitution, but for the needs of the nation, from within the constitution and from outside the constitution, the 'extra-constitutional issue' and 'quasi-constitutional', are they within the constitution or not, the country has to run in such a situation, the interim government was formed from such a place. BNP had no objection to that, to that oath-taking."

He said, the order that was issued for the referendum to be implemented, the order that was issued, mentioned the Constitutional Reform Council and the members of the National Assembly; but it is mentioned in the same referendum order.

The election was held this time through the order that was issued to implement the July Charter. They took oath as members of the National Assembly, a part of the July Charter Implementation Order, but they did not take oath as members of the Constitution Reform Council.

Akhtar said, ‘This clearly shows us that the BNP will only accept what is convenient for them to take power. And they will leave out those parts that can bring their power under accountability.

They expressed such an attitude on the first day. That is why there is a place of concern about the BNP government on the issue of reforms.

BNP was against reforms in the beginning; they were also against reforms in the Reform Commission, Akhtar said, ‘When they ran the yes and no vote campaign, Chhatra Dal officially campaigned for no vote on their official page.

Their intellectuals campaigned for no vote and in the end, under public pressure, Tarique Rahman went to Rangpur and presented his statement in favor of yes vote.

Commenting that BNP will not be able to 'overtake' the large population, Akhtar said, 'We know that they will muddy the waters, they will be forced to take the oath of the Constitutional Reform Council by muddying the waters under public pressure.'

He also said, 'For this reason, we think that the vacillation that the BNP government has regarding the reforms should not be touched by that vacillation at the International Crimes Tribunal. I came to the tribunal to inform them of that matter, to get those inquiries.'