The last 12 hours of the BNP-led 18-party opposition combine’s 60-hour hartal ended yesterday with very few incidents of blasts and clashes in Dhaka, Satkhira and Chandpur.
Main opposition BNP issued a statement saying the nation-wide nonstop rail-road-waterway blockade would continue until a further programme was announced.
A garment worker died yesterday, five days after he was critically injured in an attack by pro-blockade activists in Chittagong. Also in Sirajganj, police recovered the body of a youth who was burned to death in an arson attack on a truck on Dhaka-Bogra highway at Horgati in Salanga upazila during the hartal hours.
Police identified the Chittagong victim as Rashedul Alam Rasel, 25, of Panchbibi in Fatikchhari upazila. He succumbed to his injuries at Ma o Shishu Hospital in Agrabad around 4am. Doctors kept him on life support for the last two days.
Rasel received the injuries as blockade supporters attacked the CNG-run auto-rickshaw he was riding on with bamboo sticks and others at Hathazari on January 4. He was first taken to a local hospital.
Meanwhile, police recovered the body of Lutfur Rahman Milon, 25, from Dhaka-Bogra highway at Sirajganj.
On Tuesday, pickets set fire to a Dhaka-bound potato-laden truck at Horgati, leaving potato trader Imran, 30, dead on the spot and three others burn injured. As the driver lost control over the steering after the attack, it overturned on the road. Milon’s body was found under the truck when it was removed yesterday morning.
Apart from the two, Shahina Akter, 42, succumbed to his injuries at the intensive care unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital around 1:45am and fruit trader Farid Miah, 60, at 9:50am.
The capital, however, saw a slack hartal with no major incident of picketing. Long-route buses started operating since the evening with a low number of passengers while launch operation was normal as before. Officials said train schedules could not be maintained because of taking extra security and fogs.
Around 7:30pm, crude bomb attack by pickets left a woman and a rickshaw-puller injured at Segunbagicha area. Injured Runa Afroz, 32, and rickshaw-puller Naru Gopal, 40, were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Runa told the Dhaka Tribune at the hospital that several youths threw three bombs targeting the rickshaw.
In Dilkusha, a group of unidentified criminals set a staff bus of Sonali Bank on fire around 9:15pm when it was parked on the backside of the bank’s head office, witnesses said.
Over 150 opposition men were arrested by the joint forces and the police in Bogra, Gaibandha, Feni, Gazipur, Pabna, Satkhira and Sirajganj districts in the last three days.
A train engine was derailed in Bajitpur upazila of Kishoreganj as pickets removed fishplates of rail tracks halting communication over seven hours. Communication between Dhaka and Kishoreganj was restored yesterday afternoon after a rescue train reached Halimpur, where the wheels of the engine veered off, Station Master Jayanta Kumar Saha confirmed to the Dhaka Tribune.
In Chandpur, a clash between the supporters of ruling Awami League and the BNP left at least 10 injured at Ghosherhat around 11:30am. In a separate drive, police arrested eight opposition men while they were picketing at different points of the town, reports our correspondent quoting Superintendent of Police Amir Zafar.
In Satkhira, pickets vandalised a truck at Ramchandrapur intersection while unknown miscreants burnt down the house of an AL supporter, Jahir Uddin Chowkider, in Dhulihar Berbari area in the morning.