BNP-led 20-party alliance has extended its ongoing 72-hour hartal by another 48 hours.
BNP Joint Secretary General Salahuddin Ahmed in a press release on Tuesday announced the countrywide general strike would continue until 6am Friday.
The alliance said the strike was a protest against what it termed killings, mass arrests, and torture of party activists.
Salahuddin, who is in hiding, called on party leaders and activists to enforce the hartal peacefully, on behalf of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia.
The hartal is being enforced in tandem with the BNP alliance’s non-stop countrywide transport blockade.
The opposition alliance on Friday called the 72-hour nationwide hartal from 6am on Sunday protesting alleged government repression and what it described as a rise in extra-judicial killings.
The hartal is also meant to register the 20-party alliance's protest against the mass arrest of opposition men and common people, interference in the judiciary, control over the media, and torture on journalists, and an alleged plot to kill Khaleda Zia by hindering the supply of food to her Gulshan office – her temporary place of residence since February 15.
Since February 1, the country has witnessed nationwide strikes on top of the transport blockade, except on Friday and Saturday.
