The BNP and its allies have called yet another 72-hour blockade of roads, railways and waterways across Bangladesh starting at 6am Saturday as police filed cases across the country, hauled up senior leaders and hundreds of activists while Awai League activists attacked BNP workers at some places
Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said at a press briefing at 10pm on Friday that the blockade would last till 6am on Tuesday.
The announcement of the new blockade programme was sudden, because the BNP-led alliance had called a countrywide demonstration and a rally in Dhaka for Saturday.
This is apparently in response to a num ber of measures taken by the government police, the awami league. Clashes were reported at many places on Friday as BNP workers went to offer funeral prayer for the dead, and in Chittagong one activist was hot dead.
In Chittagong several senior leaders including the former mayor of the city Mir Nasir and a number of workers were arrested for alleged offences related to the opposition movement.
Senior BNP leaders including acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir have been sued in connection with Thursday’s arson attack on bus passengers at Shahbagh.
The case, filed at the Shahbagh Police Station, accuses the BNP leaders of instigating the arson, said Maruf Hossain Sardar, Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (Ramna division).
BNP Vice-Chairman Sadeque Hossain Khoka, Standing Committee member Mirza Abbas, Joint Secretaries General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, Aman Ullan Aman and Barkatullah Bulu, and party Dhaka metropolitan unit’s Joint Convenor Salauddin Ahmed and Member Secretary Abdus Salam are among the accused.
Seventeen leaders of the main opposition have been named in the case while three others were unnamed.
Suspected Opposition activists had torched the bus on the third day of their 71-hour nationwide blockade leaving 18 passengers injured. Two of them later died in hospital.
Mirza Fakhrul in a statement on Thursday night had held government ‘agents’ responsible for the arson at Shahbagh.
The transport clamp is being applied again to press for the cancellation of the announced election schedule and release of Opposition leaders and activists.
It comes nearly six hours after several senior BNP leaders were sued in a case filed over an arson attack in Dhaka on Thursday amid the Opposition’s 71-hour nationwide blockade which had begun on Tuesday.
At least 20 people were killed across the country in the past four days during the violent blockade marked by crude bomb blasts, arson, vandalism and sabotage on the railways. Staff Reporter
