At least four people died and more than 150 others, including 10 policemen, were injured during instances of violence on the first day of the opposition’s 60-hour shutdown.
Clashes took place in the capital and various other districts, while pickets hurled bombs. Many vehicles were set on fire while a number of others were vandalised. Train communications were also disrupted in several districts.
Police fired around 200 rounds of rubber bullets and teargas shells during the clashes and arrested around 100 pro-hartal activists.
Among the deceased, an activist of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, the students’ wing of the BNP, was shot dead in a three-way clash in Lalmonirhat; a day labourer was killed in Natore after he was hit by a brick thrown by pickets; a garment factory official in Chittagong was killed as the auto-rickshaw carrying him overturned after being chased by the pickets; and in Ashulia, another auto-rickshaw passenger was killed after hartal supporters aimed a crude bomb at the vehicle.
The BNP-led 18-party opposition enforced the general strike demanding a non-party caretaker government to oversee the upcoming general elections.
In the previous 60-hour hartal on October 27-29, at least 15 people were killed and several hundred others injured in the instances of violence that ensued.
According to reports from our correspondents in various districts, despite the deployment of near 30,000 additional forces from police, Rab and BGB, the capital remained almost isolated from the districts due to the absence of public transport on the roads and other routes.
Most educational institutions and business establishments remained closed.
In Lalmonirhat, where Chhatra Dal activist Md Nasir Uddin died, around 30 others, including 10 policemen, were also injured during altercations when the activists of the Awami League, BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami pounced on each other in the Sohagpur area of Patgram upazila at around 10am. Of the injured six had sustained bullet wounds.
The conditions of sub-inspectors Ramjan Ali and Anwar Hossain were critical, police said.
Witnesses said police intervened with teargas launchers when the hartal supporters hurled handmade bombs at them. At least 20 bombs were thrown towards the security forces.
In Chittagong, Jakir Hossain, 30, commercial manager of C&A Group, was killed after an auto-rickshaw carrying him overturned after being attacked by pickets near Maulabhi Pukurpar of Bahaddarhat at around 10:45am.
Abdur Rouf, OC of Chandgaon police station, told the Dhaka Tribune that Jakir died at Chittagong Medical College Hospital around 1:30pm.
Mahtab Uddin, colleague of the victim who was also in the vehicle, said the pickets had hurled bricks on the auto-rickshaw breaking its windshield. “As the driver was trying to escape the attack he had lost.”
Anti-hartal supporters were also seen in different points of the port city.
Day labourer Ishaq Ali, 40, died when pickets hurled bricks targeting a truck carrying around 50 farmers at Gurudaspur in Natore on Monday morning.
In Ashulia on the Dhaka’s outskirts, Mostafizur Rahman Mukul, an official of private firm Bishwas Group, succumbed to his burn injuries that he sustained on Sunday night. He was returning to Nabinagar by an auto-rickshaw from the Dholaikhal area of the capital.
His colleague Nasir Uddin Mridha said: ”Soon after the vehicle reached Savar Cantonment Public School around 10pm, four to five unidentified criminals hurled a crude bomb. It fell inside the vehicle. Both Mukul and driver Md Hasu sustained burn injuries.”
Ashulia OC Sheikh Badrul Alam said both Hasu and Mukul had been admitted to Gono Swasthya Hospital first, and later moved to Burn and Plastic Surgery unit at DMCH.
At least 20 others sustained severe burn injuries in Dhaka, Ashulia, Gazipur, Chittagong, Jessore and several other places. Rail tracks were set on fire in the capital’s Banani, Brahmanbaria, Chandpur and Jhenidah districts.
Masudur Rahman, deputy commissioner of Media Centre at Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said a total of 21 people were arrested in the capital during the hartal. Ten of them were sentenced to differing jail terms by mobile courts.
Mid-night violence
Three more vehicles were set on fire last night and several crude bombs were exploded near Dhaka Central Jail and Kamrangirchar leaving two more youths injured.
The victims – Saddam, 20, and Rimon, 18 – were admitted to DMCH.
Moreover, at least five people including two teenagers were arrested for throwing bombs and vandalising buses in the Mohakhali, Gabtoli and Gendaria areas.
