While addressing a rally organised for the freedom fighters at Dhaka’s Gulistan on Sunday, Khaleda appealed her party leaders to “oust the Awami League in order to restore democracy.”

Referring to this remark, Hasan said: “Your threats are like roars of a caged, helpless lion.”

At a meeting of the Awami Hawkers League at the National Press Club on Monday, Hasan came down hard on Khaleda, whose zodiac sign is Leo.

Khaleda’s call for movements suggests her intention of carrying out another spell of arson and vandalism, Hasan said.

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“(She) has said that no election will be allowed to take place if the parliament is not dissolved. We fear that she is planning to burn people again.

“But the people will not let that happen this time,” he said.

The BNP-led 20-Party alliance grabbed the headlines in 2015 with its nationwide blockade programme that continued throughout the first quarter of that year and was marred by violence, vandalism, arson and clashes.

“Khaleda’s roars are expressions of her helplessness as she is no longer able to collaborate with the former chief justice (Surendra Kumar Sinha) to hatch a conspiracy,” said the Awami League publicity secretary.

“I wish she (Khaleda) had explained why she was staying at the Pakistan cantonment during the 1971 Liberation War and why she circulated a condolence message over death of General (Iftikhar Khan) Janjua, a Pakistani army officer,” Hasan went on.

She has mocked the freedom fighters by attending their rally, he remarked.