At least 100 people were injured across the country on Wednesday in sporadic violence, as the 18-party called 60-hour hartal came to an end.
The pickets torched and vandalised many vehicles and exploded over 100 crude bombs during the day, while police made at least 51 arrests.
On Wednesday’s figures of violence put the 60-hour hartal’s total death toll at five, while around 700 people were injured.
Among on Wednesday’s incidents, at least 50 people were injured in a clash between Awami League and the BNP in Bahria Bazar area of Chandpur sadar upazila. The clashes ensued when a BNP procession met a counter-procession by ruling party activists. Awami League activists also allegedly set fire to the local BNP office.
Five Shibir activists were also arrested during a clash between Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir members and police in front of the Chandpur Government College. Police also detained four BNP pickets from the Chandpur-Kuchua road.
In the capital, Jamaat-Shibir men allegedly set fire to an office of Sramik League in Demra, as well as locking horns with law enforcers in Gulshan, where at least 10 crude bombs were set off. At least eight people were injured in the clashes.
Earlier, three Shibir men were detained with Jihadi books and leaflets from a Shekhertek house in the capital.
Jubo Dal supporters allegedly attacked journalists and vandalised a media van in Badda.
Bombs were exploded in front of the Judge’s court building, Jagannath University, and the headquarters of both Awami League and the BNP.
A Chhatra Dal activist named Abdul Kaiyum was picked up from in front of the Awami League office with two bombs, while a Jubo Dal leader named Mehedi Hasan Khokan, 32, was also arrested with two bombs at Mugda.
Sources at the police headquarters said a total of 156 people, including 76 in capital, were arrested, 26 vehicles were set ablaze, 52 were vandalized, while 28 policemen were injured during the 60-hour hartal.
However, BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir claimed that four activists of the 18-party alliance were killed, 6,000 were injured, 1,707 were arrested and 26,000 were accused in cases during the hartal.
Among other major incidents, train communication on the Dhaka-Chittagong route was disrupted for an hour, after pickets uprooted a railway slipper at Shilmun in Gazipur’s Tongi at around 6:15am. A bus was torched in front of Tongi fire station, another bus carrying garment workers was set ablaze at Manikganj’s Shivalaya upazila, while an auto-rickshaw was set on fire in Khulna.
Two Shibir men were injured in Bogra’s Dhunat upazila during an attack by Awami League activists.
Elsewhere, eight pickets were arrested in Maulvibazar, and two Jamaat men were held at Paikgachha in Khulna.
A mobile court also awarded a picketer one year’s jail for picketing at Dharabarisha village in Gurudaspur upazila in Natore.