At least two people were killed in Chittagong and Faridpur and 50, including 10 policemen, injured in violence in different districts on Sunday on the second day of the opposition’s countrywide rail, road and waterway blockade.
An upazila level leader of Jatyatabadi Jubo Dal, youth front of main opposition BNP, was beaten to death in Chittagong early on Sunday. Abdul Gafur, 45, was a resident of Paschim Rasidabad in Patiya upazila.
Chittagong district unit BNP called a dawn-to-dusk strike at the upazila for today protesting the alleged killing.
Mafiz Uddin, OC of Paitya police station told the Dhaka Tribune that Gafur had been attacked by a group of miscreants while he was returning on a motorbike from a temple after attending a festival of the hindu community around 11:30pm.
Later he died at the Chittagong Medical College Hospital. Police detained four people for interrogation in connection, said the OC.Idris Mia, chairman of Patiya upazila parishad and also a BNP leader, alleged that ruling party activists lodged the attack.
In Faridpur, Jillur Sarder, 36, from the Sottajitpur village of Pangsha upazila of Rajbari district, died at the Faridpur Medical College Hospital on Sunday.
Jillur was hurt in an explosion when he was reportedly making crude bombs inside a house at Char Adampur area of the Faridpur district township. He died around 9pm at the hospital from excessive bleeding.
Kamruzzaman, Faridpur senior assistant police super, told reporters that Zillur was hired by the local unit of Swechchasebok Dal, volunteers’ unit of BNP, for making bombs.
In the capital, on the second day of the 72-hour blockade, a Titumir College student and a trader sustained injuries from bomb explosions in front of the college.
Incidents of violence were also reported from the capital’s Khilkhet, Karwan Bazar, Hatirjheel, Mirpur, Lalbagh areas and the older part of the city.
Law enforcers picked up four activists of Chhatra Shibir, student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, from Azimpur.
Police rounded up 38 pickets from the capital, four of whom had been given three to six months’ imprisonment.
According to the fire service, 10 vehicles were burnt around the country on Sunday, three of them in the capital.
In the capital, blockaders torched a bus by hurling crude bombs at the Bangshal intersection. Police fired rubber bullets to disperse the blockade supporters. The opposition activists set a bus on fire at Dhanmondi 15, while another in front of the Kakoli High School in Banani, using petrol.
In Mirpur, 15-20 activists of Jubo Dal blasted several homemade bombs at the Bazar Road. The activists set rail tracks on fire at Karwan Bazar.
The BNP-led 18-party alliance enforced the blockade for the second time in a span of one week protesting the announcement of schedule of the 10th parliamentary elections and the “false cases” against its leaders and “torture and repression” on its activists.
Outside Dhaka, Gazipur district unit BNP called a daylong hartal protesting “police attack on its activists” for tomorrow in the district.
Our Gazipur Correspondent reported that at least 30 people, including a policeman, were injured when they locked horns with law enforcers in Kaliakoir.
Witnesses said local BNP brought out a procession, led by district BNP Secretary Kazi Saydul Alam Babul, on the Dhaka-Tangail highway in the morning. Clashes ensued when police intervened in the bypass area. Five policemen were among the injured. Four other injured, who sustained bullet wounds, were sent to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Prior to the clash, the blockaders exploded four crude bombs in the area.
In Sylhet’s Bianibazar, miscreants torched the election office in the morning. Local residents later doused the fire.
In Barisal, pro-blockade activists torched a drug supplying covered van and ransacked a truck, a minibus and two three-wheelers in the Kashipur area on the Barisal-Dhaka highway Saturday night.
In Rajshahi, activists of Chhatra Dal, student wing of BNP, vandalised the Chamber of Commerce and Industries building and a branch of the Dutch-Bangla Bank at the Alaka Intersection. They also hurled seven crude bombs at police, triggering a clash.
