The rumours about Ansar member wearing Argentina jersey
The revelation of Ansar member wearing Argentina jersey whose photo surfaced in the clash with BNP in Naya Paltan blew off BNP's propaganda through its verified Facebook page slapping him as an activist of Awami League's student wing.
Shortly after the clash ended on 7 December, BNP's Facebook page posted photos of that official claiming, "BCL caders in civilian uniform swooped on our activists in Naya Platan."
"Terrorists of Awami League are firing bullets at our supporters," "In league with police officers, AL caders in broad daylight are attacking our people", and "AL goons in association with police attacked our party headquarters", reads captions of three different status with photos of that jersey wearing official posted from the party's page, named as "BNP media cell".
Afterwards, these statuses started doing the round on social media with pro-BNP users even weaved a further twist as they identified the account of one AL Amin Rahman, a secretary of a private university BCL unit, and slapped the blame on him.
"Only because my profile picture holds the photo of putting on Argentina jersey, they deliberately targeted me and their followers hurled expletives at me," said the AL worker.
Calling this move as BNP's "rumour-driven politics" he added, "This is another example of BNP's long-pursued policy of spreading lies against us."
"[That day] Till noon I was on my university campus. In the afternoon I watched cricket match between Bangladesh and India," AL Amin explained his reaction before media.
"Even BNP leaders including Ishraque Hossain shared these statuses from their accounts and accused me of attacking them. After their posts went viral, I and my family have been receiving threats and even friends from overseas also contacted us to know details," added AL Amin.
The 24-hour rumour-mongering campaign finally fizzled out as Mahidur Rahman, a member of Ansar team, attached to the capital's Paltan thana, appeared before media to clarify his stance.
"Whenever an alarm rings inside our compound, we are told to assemble at a designated location and report our senior irrespective of our dress. I was lying in bed after having a meal. As BNP men were locked in clashes, the alarm rang. Then off duty, I was in my room wearing the jersey but rushed to the spot with my jersey as we were told for additional deployment as our colleagues were injured", added Mahidur in an interview with media.
"Without delay, we were dispatched there I didn't even have time to wear bulletproof vest," clarified Mahidur.
Now as the revelation came out, netizens also came down heavily on BNP reminding the party of its earlier instances of rumour peddling with Jamaat-e-Islami to save convicted war criminal known as Delwar Hossain Sayedee "Sayedee was sighted on the moon" was one such infamous propaganda the party activists used to attack minorities a few years back.
However, amid such criticisms following the revelation of these identities BNP did not offer any clarification on their pages with some pages quietly removing the content.
