Stock investors not to demonstrate at Motijheel

Small investors in a formal pledge to the police on Wednesday promised that they would not stage any demonstrations near the building of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) at Motijheel. 

Individual investors, under the banner of Bangladesh Pujibazar Biniogkari Oikya Parishad, usually demonstrate in front of the building of the premier bourse to protest various stock market crimes and policy adversities. 

Earlier in August, the DSE authorities filed a general diary with the Motijheel Police Station seeking action against such gatherings and demonstrations in the area.   

It conveys a negative message to the world about the county's capital market and everyone should avoid such behaviour, claimed the DSE. 

As the stock market is in a free fall, small investors – being the biggest sufferers – gathered on the sidewalk in front of the exchange building and formed a human chain this week. 

On Wednesday morning, the association's President Mizanur Rashid Chowdhury and Secretary General Kazi Abdur Razzak were called to the Motijheel Police Station where they stayed for around three hours. 

Emerging from the police station, the leaders informed reporters, "We have been asked not to gather in front of, or near, the stock exchange building to stage any protest against stock market crimes. We were released after signing an undertaking.

"If we stage protests against the bleeding of the stock market, we will be detained again. We seek the prime minister's attention to help thousands of small investors," they added. 

The stock market in Bangladesh is in a bearish trend that pushed DSEX, the broad-based index at the DSE, down more than 14 percent in 2018. In 2019, the index has fallen by over 11 percent till Wednesday. 

Majority of the stocks are suffering from a sharp fall in prices, eroding investors' capital every month. 

The government, through various schemes, has been trying to prevent the market from bleeding, but nothing has worked so far.