Another spell of three-day countrywide shutdown begins this morning with Hefajat-e-Islam calling a dawn-to-dusk hartal for today to be followed by a 36-hour general strike announced by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led ‘18-party’ alliance for Tuesday and Wednesday.
In pre-hartal violence, pickets torched at least six vehicles at different places of the capital and several others in other cities and towns across the country on Sunday.
The authorities deployed paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh in Dhaka and some other cities last night as a precaution against violence.
The BGB will continue patrolling the city until this morning, said its officials.
The BNP-led alliance has called the 36-hour hartal to push for immediate and unconditional release of its top leaders and activists, including its acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.
Mirza Fakhrul, BNP standing committee members Moudud Ahmed, Mirza Abbas, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, vice- chairman Abdullah Al Noman, joint secretary general Barkatullah Bulu, student affairs secretary Shahiduddin Chowdhury Annie and Juba Dal president Syed Moazzem Hossain Alal, among others, were sent to jail on Sunday after they appeared before court for hearing in different cases against them.
BNP joint secretary general Salahuddin Ahmed at a news conference at the party central office on behalf of BNP and the ‘18-party’ alliance announced the general strike from 6:00am April 9 to 6:00pm April 10.
He said the hartal had been called also in protest against the recent ‘genocide’, to press for withdrawal of all ‘false’ cases against the party leaders and activists, resignation of the ‘failed’ and ‘inept’ government and restoration of the election- time non-party caretaker government system.
Referring to the sending of the party top leaders to jail on the day, Salahuddin said the government had resorted to ‘judicial terrorism’.
He said the government wanted to ‘exile’ politics from the country and hinder democratic process by unleashing repression.
Salahuddin warned the government that there was still time to accept the ‘people’s demands’ for the sake of democracy, otherwise, the government’s fall was ‘inevitable’.
He said that the ‘18-party’ alliance’s scheduled rally at Naya Paltan for April 10 had been postponed.
Asked whether the BNP had extended support to Hefajat-e-Islam’s countrywide hartal on Monday, he said they were ‘undecided’.
In reply to a question, he said they did not want pubic sufferings but ‘we have our back to the wall’.
On Saturday, the Hefajat-e-Islam at its Shapla Square grand rally called dawn-to-dusk countrywide shutdown for today in protest against the government ‘obstruction’ to people marching to Dhaka to join the rally as well as to push for its 13-point demand.
Hefajat-e-Islam leaders at a press conference at the platform’s temporary office at Lalbagh on Sunday called on the people to observe the general strike peacefully.
Hefajat’s Dhaka city chapter amir Noor Hossain Qasemi alleged that law enforcers and ruling party activists had started raiding madrassahas at different places and houses and harassing madrassaha students and ulema ahead of the hartal.
He also alleged that Hefajat-e-Islam activists had come under attack from ruling party men at different places across the country on their way home from the Dhaka rally.
About the attempted attack on Shahbagh protesters by Hefajat men on Saturday, he said, ‘It was the Shahbagh protesters who attacked our activists first.’
Qasemi said the Hefajat-e-Islam activists would take to the streets with prayer mats and rosaries to enforce the hartal today.
He said they would not damage public properties while enforcing the
hartal.
Qasemi alleged that ruling party activists wearing madrassaha students’ outfit had harassed journalists to give Hefajat a bad name.
‘Our activists cannot do such heinous things,’ Qasemi claimed. He, however, regretted the incident of attack on female journalists.
Meanwhile, in the capital, witnesses said a bus was set on fire at Kakrail crossing and another in front of Rajarbagh Police Lines.
Pro-hartal activists torched a bus at Basabo, another at Motijheel, a third at Mugda and a jeep near BTV Bhaban at Rampura Sunday evening.
New Age correspondents in different districts reported that pro-hartal activists had marched in processions on the eve of the shutdown.
The local unity of BNP in Thakurgaon, the home district of Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, announced enforcement of the shutdown in the district from Sunday afternoon.
New Age staff correspondent in Chittagong said the BNP activists had vandalised several vehicles, including a car of private television channel Somoy, in protest at a court’s sending the party leaders to jail in Dhaka. (
Source)
