Two more arson attack victims died yesterday at the burn units of Dhaka and Rangpur medical college hospitals raising the death toll in the ongoing rail-road blockade to 36.
Truck driver of Sylhet Bakul Debnath, 38, died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital a week after he had received the burn injuries.
He suffered 35% burn on his face, hand and chest. He was first admitted to a hospital in Sylhet and then shifted to the DMCH.
Another victim Abdur Rashid, 38, was a helper of a truck which was attacked in Dinajpur’s Bhusirbandar Bridge area on the night of January 23.
In the Molotov cocktail attack, Rashid who hails from Dinajpur sadar, sustained 95% burn injuries. He died around 5am at Rangpur Medical College Hospital, reports our Rangpur correspondent.
Director of the hospital Abdul Kader Khan said Rashid’s burns were out of remedy. “We have tried a lot but burn injuries of this scale is not curable.”
Yesterday was the 22nd day of the BNP-led 20-party alliance’s countrywide non-stop blockade that started on January 6 demanding fresh national poll.
Hundreds of people have received injuries, more than 300 vehicles burnt and at least 431 vandalised so far in the blockade violence across the country.
The situation in the capital was normal yesterday with people experiencing traffic jam in many places. Launch and train communications too were almost normal but trains were yet to come back to normal schedule.
Outside the capital the blockade was observed with a few stray incidents.
Meanwhile, in a fresh arson attack, a truck driver and his assistant sustained burn injuries as pro-blockaders hurled a petrol bomb at a speeding truck on Dhaka-Chittagong Highway in Sitakunda of Chittagong.
Injured truck driver Azizur Rahman, 35, son of Mubarak Alam of Jessore, and his assistant Md Shameem, 21, son of Rezaul Karim, were admitted to the Burn and Plastic Surgery Unit of Chittagong Medical College Hospital.
Aziz told the Dhaka Tribune that three to four masked men hurled a Molotov cocktail at their onion-laden truck on the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway in Suklalhat area of Sitakunda around 6:30am.
“I was entering Chittagong from Sona Masjid area of Bogra when I saw a man coming out of a nearby locality. The person threw a petrol bomb at us leaving us burnt,” Aziz recalled.
Aziz said he and his assistant Shameem jumped off the truck before it plunged into a roadside ditch.
On-duty doctor Dr Rejina Islam of the CMCH Burn Unit said Aziz suffered 18% burn injuries on his face and hands while Shameem got himself injured jumping off the truck.
Officer-in-Charge Iftekhar Hossain of Sitakunda police said they were yet to know about the incident but they we found the truck lying in the ditch.
“We sent our police officials to the hospital to find out what exactly happened there,” the OC said.
Meanwhile, the dawn-to-dusk hartal in Chittagong district enforced by Jamaat-e-Islami’s student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir passed peacefully yesterday.
No untoward incident was reported in the city and elsewhere in the district during the hartal hours while the city life remained usual.
Public transports and a few private cars were seen plying different streets.
No pickets were seen on the streets amid additional police forces deployed at the key points of the city to fend off any kind of sudden violence.
The presence of goods-laden trucks, covered vans and other vehicles was very thin on the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway when a few local transports carried passengers during the hartal hours, highway police said.
Local Chhatra Shibir called the day-long shutdown protesting the arrest of Chittagong district (south) unit President Tarek Hossain on Sunday.
Police in an overnight drive arrested 12 leaders and activists of BNP-Jamaat from the different upazilas for their alleged involvement in subversive activities, said police sources.
At Monoharganj in Comilla, pro-blockaders burnt down a covered van. They also vandalised a pick-up van and four CNG-run autorickshaws. No one was arrested in the incidents.
In Rajshahi city, a few Shibir activists tried to block the highway by burning tyres in front of Shah Makhdum College around 10am but they fled the scene after police appeared.
Pro-blockade activists also set a truck on fire at Belpukur of Puthia upazila early yesterday. A fire-fighting unit rushed to the spot and doused the blaze.
Meanwhile, the 20-party alliance called a dawn-to-dusk shutdown in Sylhet division for tomorrow protesting an arson case filed against BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia in Comilla as an instigator.
Sunamganj unit of the alliance also called a dawn-to-dust shutdown in the district for tomorrow on the same issue.
In a separate development, the alliance called a 48-hour hartal in Bogra district from today on the same grounds.
BNP chief and three-time former premier Khaleda Zia and 31 other BNP-Jamaat leaders were sued on Sunday night for setting fire to a covered van in Chouddagram upazila of Comilla.
Meanwhile, RAB members seized 48 petrol bombs and two kilogrammes of gunpowder from Kamrangirchar of the capital early yesterday.
A team of RAB conducted a raid in Madrasapara area around 4:15am and recovered the Molotov cocktails and gunpowder from an abandoned under-construction building, said ASP Khairul Alam, operation officer of RAB 10.
They also recovered 30 empty glass bottles along with one kilogramme of potassium and Sulphur each from the site. No one was arrested in this connection.
