Dhaka city BNP on Friday called a 24-hour shutdown beginning at 6am on
Sunday in the city protesting the arrest of its convener Sadeque
Hossain Khoka. The city BNP will enforce the shutdown at time when
the whole country will remain under the grip of the BNP-led 18-party
alliance’s 72-hour rail-road-waterway blockade which starts at 6am on
Saturday. The general strike that will begin at 6am on Sunday and
end 6am on Monday is also meant for mounting pressure on the
government for withdrawing the ‘false cases’ filed against senior BNP
leaders, including BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam
Alamgir. The protest programme was chalked out in an emergency
meeting of the city unit BNP with its member secretary Abdus Salam in
the chair, said a press release. Earlier on Wednesday night, law
enforcers arrested BNP vice-chairman and its Dhaka city unit convener
Sadeque Hossain Khoka from the city’s Uttara area. The following
day, a Dhaka court placed Khoka on a two-day remand in a case filed
for arson attack on a bus in the city’s Shahbagh area on November 28.
The BNP leader was shown arrested in two cases recently filed against
some opposition leaders. Of them, one was filed against 16
opposition leaders, including Khoka, BNP acting secretary general
Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and its joint secretary general Ruhul
Kabir Rizvi, on November 29 in connection with the arson attack of
November 28 on a bus in the city’s Shahbagh area that left three
people dead and 15 others injured. The other case was filed on
Sunday against 15 opposition leaders, including Fakhrul and Khoka,
with Ramna Police Station in connection with Saturday’s arson attack
on a bus in the city’s Malibagh area that left a man dead and four
people injured. – UNB
