The BNP-led opposition is likely to make an all-out effort from today to resist the January 5 “farcical” election as it has called a countrywide 48-hour shutdown yesterday alongside the ongoing non-stop road-rail-waterways blockade.
The opposition alliance, which is not taking part in the “one-sided” polls, announced the nationwide “peaceful strike” from 6am of Saturday to 6am of Monday also to protest the confinement of BNP Chief Khaleda Zia.
The least contested election is going to take place in 147 constituencies on January 5 as 153 lawmakers have already been elected uncontested, thanks to the boycott by the BNP-led alliance and other political parties.
Yesterday, the violence escalated in different parts of the country where two people lost their lives in arson attacks by miscreants in Dinajpur, three truckers received injuries in Chapainawabganj and three more including a woman in the capital on the third day of the nonstop blockade.
Six policemen sustained injuries in a clash with blockade campaigners in Gaibandha.
On the day a college unit level leader of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat sustained injuries from blast while making bombs in Bogra.
In new dimension of subversion miscreants set fire to five polling centres set up in four schools and a madrasa in Daganbhuiyan upazila of Feni at midnight. There were also incidents of attack and torching vehicles on highways, vandalism and arson of rival party offices, election campaign offices and establishments in several districts.
On the other hand life in Dhaka metropolitan was more or less hampered due to continuous isolation from other districts, especially for suspended road communication by the private long-distance bus owners fearing violence.
Target Polling Centers
Miscreants set fire to five polling centres set up in four schools and a madrasa in Daganbhuiyan upazila of Feni with a day in hand for the general election.
Two of the institutions were burned badly while three others damaged partially in separate arson attacks carried out between 1:00am and 3:00am.
Daganbhuiyan Police Station’s OC Nizam Uddin said miscreants set fire to Omar Sultana Memorial Girls High School in Jaylaskar union and Gazaria Ideal Academy, a kindergarten school, in Purba Chandrapur union by pouring petrol.
Besides, Nayanpur Government Primary School and Basiria Madrasa in Purba Chandrapur union and Karim Ullah High School in Matubhuiyan union were partially damaged when miscreants set afire the institutions, the police official said.
In the morning students and teachers of the fully burnt educational institutions broke down into tears after seeing their dear institution damaged and burnt. They saw only the charred benches, tables and the rooms where they used to study every day.
Deaths and causalities in arson attack
Quoting police, our Dinajpur correspondent reports, at least two persons were killed and three injured as a truck plunged into a roadside ditch when blockaders hurled a petrol bomb on the vehicle in Hakimpur upazila in Dinajpur around 1:30am.
SM Ahsan Habib, OC of Hakimpur Police Station, said as the truck caught fire, the driver lost control over the steering and the onion-laden vehicle fell into a roadside ditch at Itai-Bawna village. Fire service recovered the charred bodies of the truck owner Shah Newaz Mandal, 30, and trader Adilur Rahman from the driver’s cabin.
“Driver Yusuf Ali, his helper Shahjahan and a worker Sumon sustained injuries but they could go out of the cabin, he said.
The truck was heading for Sadullahpur upazila in Gaibandha from Hili land port located in the upazila.
In the capital unidentified assailants hurled petrol bombs at a Gulistan-bound passenger bus of route 3 in front of Borak Tower near Paribagh’s foot-over-bridge around 7:30am that left passengers Md Farid, 50, Shahina Aktar, 40, and the driver Babul, 32, injured.
In Shibganj upazila of Jamaat-dominated Chapainawabganj a trucker and his two helpers sustained burn injuries as blockaders hurled a patrol bomb at the Dhaka-bound truck at 3:00am.
Of the injured, trucker Jamaatul Islam, 40, and helper Azizul Islam, 50, were whisked off to Rajshahi Medical College and Hospital. With 30 percent injuries Jamaatul’s condition was critical.
Meanwhile, miscreants set fire to an Awami League office in Comilla Sadar Upazila and in another incident they torched a truck in Chandpur. A human hauler was torched in Narayanganj.
President of Bogra Govt Azizul Haque College unit of Shibir Jewel Sarkar, 25, sustained injuries while making bombs, police said.
Later, in separate press statements, local Shibir first claimed that Jewel received injury when he picked up a cocktail mistaking it for a ball in front of his house but later the central unit of the student organisation said two motorbike riders hurled bomb at him.
Six police personnel including officer-in-charge and inspector were seriously injured in a clash between the law enforcers and the blockaders in Sabdin Nayabazar area under Palashbari upazila in the afternoon. Blockaders also set alight two police motorbikes.
The Capital
Shibir men locked into mild clashes with police in capital’s Azampur, Malibagh, Kolabagan and Kamalapur during processions with indiscriminate blasts when 6 Shibir men were arrested and 5 others injured. The blockaders torched at least four buses at Abdullahpur, Gulistan and Pribagh.
With a few passengers trains service continued but had delays in maintaining schedule. The number of public transports was higher than the previous days but launches plied with lower number of passengers.
At bus stations many passengers were seen trying to arrange alternative vehicles as some small bus companies decided to ply buses on long distance routes.