A group of pro-ruling party transport workers yesterday marched on opposition leader Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan residence in protest at the ongoing countrywide blockade.
The demonstrators claimed the BNP-led hartals and blockades were costing the transport workers their lives.
Led by Ali Hossain, president of Chalak League and also a brother of Nur Hossain, who was killed in a police shooting during the anti-Ershad movement, the procession was brought out from Mohakhali Bus Terminal with a vow to lay siege to the residence of BNP chairperson. Police and witnesses said the procession was intercepted by police at Gulshan 2, where the protesting workers held a rally.
The demonstrators repeatedly tried to break the barricades put up by the lawmen, but failed. They also chanted various anti-blockade slogans.
Police asked the workers to send a team of their representatives to meet Khaleda Zia with a memorandum, but they refused the offer.
At the rally, the workers urged the opposition leader not to enforce hartals or blockades and to stop arson attacks on their transport which was ultimately claiming lives of their fellows. The rally was concluded with the issuing of a note of warning to the opposition leader and her allies. Security had been beefed up around the BNP chairperson’s house as the siege programme was announced. Additional forces were deployed there, but later withdrawn at the end of the rally.
Khandaker Lutful Kabir, deputy commissioner of Gulshan division of police, told the Dhaka Tribune they stopped the procession after it reached Gulshan 2.
