The 60-hour countrywide hartal enforced by the BNP-led 18-party alliance ended on Tuesday with another two people dying amid violent clashes, vandalism, arson and crude bomb attacks.
After the first two days of the hartal were marred by widespread violence and 11 deaths, the third day was relatively relaxed.
At least 150 vehicles were damaged, several hundred crude bombs blasted and over 1,000 people including several law enforcers injured across the country during the three-day shutdown.
Police said they arrested over 300 opposition activists during the hartal.
Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia on Friday announced the hartal as an ultimatum to the government to initiate dialogue over the polls-time government within two days. The next day Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina invited her for a dialogue.
On the first day of the shutdown, five people were killed across the country while on the second day, six died. Most fell victim to the clashes between the ruling party and hartal supporters.
Of the two people who died on Tuesday, BNP activist Maruf Hasan, 20, was shot dead during a clash with police and Awami League workers in Mohammadpur upazila in the morning, when 25 others were injured, reports our Magura correspondent.
Violence flared when a procession of the city unit BNP came under the attack of the AL activists around noon. At that time, police fired rubber bullets, leaving Maruf dead on the spot, said Mohammadpur police station Officer-in-Charge Monirul Islam.
In Kishoreganj, one Jubo League leader succumbed to the injuries he sustained during the second day of hartal in Boniadi area of Bajitpur upazila. The deceased was named as Sher Ali, 50, joint secretary of Jubo League’s Boniadi union.
Following Monday’s violence, local administrations imposed a ban on gatherings (section 144) in Pakundia and Bajitpur upazilas on Tuesday, reports our correspondent, quoting SM Ramjan Ali, OC of Bajitpur police station.
In the capital on Tuesday, activists of Jamaat’s student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir injured the OC of Hazaribagh police station in a bomb attack in Dhanmondi area around 6:30am. OC Masud Karim was admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Minor girl Rahmia Akter lost one of her eyes after being injured by a bomb in the city’s Jurain area. A day before, a mason lost his left eye while a CNG auto-rickshaw driver lost a hand under the attack of hartal picketers.
The incidents of crude bomb blasts, chases and counter-chases between police and hartal supporters were also reported in other parts of the city in the early hours on Tuesday including in Goran, Rampura, Jatrabari, Maghbazar Rail Gate and Nayapaltan.
Besides these, attack on VIPs’ establishments continued as several crude bombs were hurled at the residences of Chief Justice M Muzammel Hossain, Labour and Employment Minister Rajiuddin Ahmed Raju, BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Standing Committee member Mirza Abbas, and Dhaka city unit Member Secretary Abdus Salam on Tuesday.
Police picked up at least 40 hartal supporters in the capital with 10 of them convicted by mobile court.
Home Minister MK Alamgir on Tuesday claimed that the BNP-led 18-party alliance would have to take responsibility for the deaths during the hartal hours.
“The government has already begun investigating the incidents of killing. Tough actions will be taken against those who killed innocent people,” the minister told reporters at his Secretariat office.
