Fears of a revisit of the violence of October 28, 2006 went unrealised on Monday as no significant incidents were reported during the second day of opposition’s 60-hour shutdown.
Concerns were raised after the two leading political parties and their alliance members intensified their campaigns over the polls-time government in days leading up to the anniversary of the day in 2006 when at least 12 were killed in clashes between activists of then opposition Awami League and Jamaat.
Opposition ally Jamaat-e-Islami and its students’ wing Islami Chhatra Shibir had targeted this day to take advantage of the countrywide hartal. They have been campaigning on their websites and social networking sites, mainly Facebook, saying they would “take revenge” for the “killing” of their “brothers.”
On this day seven years ago, Dhaka turned into a fierce battlefield with thousands of Awami League activists and its alliance supporters clashing with Jamaat-Shibir activists in Paltan area, leaving six dead and scores injured.
During the last few rallies of the opposition combined, especially those held on October 25 at Suhrawardy Udyan of Dhaka and elsewhere, Jamaat-Shibir supporters staged huge showdowns apparently sideling the main opposition BNP and spreading panic among commoners.
No significant violence was seen in the capital on Monday, though Jamaat-Shibir activists were found at the forefront of a number of violent incidents during and prior to the hartal hours elsewhere in the country, which has seen at least 15 killed since Friday.
Characteristically, Jamaat-Shibir supporters showed anger towards the ruling Awami League men by hacking and slitting tendons in a number of incidents.
On Monday, masked Shibir activists hacked a union parishad member, also a local AL leader Habibur Rahman of Lohagora upazila in Chittagong, after hitting him on his head as he was returning home.
On the first day of the hartal, the Shibir men, backed by local BNP activists, hacked to death Swapan Shil, 35, a barber in Pirojpur. They stormed his home and also hacked his wife and beat up their children severely. Swapan’s only “crime” was that some activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League, the students’ wing of the Awami League, used to hang out at his shop and chat with him.
On Sunday, they also cut the tendon of Chhatra League leader Bappy Mollah when a group of BCL activists tried to resist Shibir activists from vandalising a dozen shops and houses of Awami League supporters at Baliapara in Pirojpur. They also swooped on four members of a family of a Chhatra League leader.
Jamaat-Shibir also exhibited signs of brutality in Jessore that day by hacking to death a municipality Jubo League leader of Noapara after dragging him out of a police camp. Typically, the Shibir men cut his tendon.
The Shibir activists hacked two Chhatra League men in Chapainawabganj and cut their tendons at Shibganj upazila after stopping their bicycle.
In Chittagong, the Shibir men brutally hacked three Chhatra League activists.
Besides these, Jamaat-Shibir activists allegedly attacked the house of Mahbubul Alam Hawlader, a complainant and prosecution witness in the case against Jamaat leader and convicted war criminal Delawar Hossain Sayedee at Zianagar upazila of Pirojpur.
“Remembering” the October 28, the Shibir activists on Monday claimed to have brought out processions at 331 places outside the capital and 38 in the city. According to police and our correspondents, they hurled cocktails and resorted to vandalism at most of the processions.