Yet another BNP-led opposition alliance sponsored nationwide blockade of rail, road and waterways began at 6am today.
The opposition has called the fresh 83-hour blockade hours before the fourth spell ended Friday morning. The fresh spell will end at 5pm Tuesday.
The opposition alliance has been enforcing back-to-back blockades since November 26, a day after the Election Commission announced the schedule for the 10th parliamentary polls. The alliance has been demanding the suspension of the election schedule, installation of a non-party polls-time government and the release of its leaders.
At least 115 people were killed and more than a thousand, including law enforcers, were injured in violence from November 25 to December 18. Consequently, the home ministry has begun drives in 16 violence-ridden districts to bring the situation under control.
In the latest development, the joint forces of mainly police, RAB and Border Guard Bangladesh, have picked up 22 leaders of BNP and its ally Jamaat-e-Islami from Patgram upazila in Lalmonirhat and 30 from Bogra yesterday for their alleged involvement with the recent sabotages and criminal acts.
Meanwhile, amid the drive, “unknown miscreants” torched and vandalised some shops and houses at Kaliganj upzila in Satkhira yesterday. Some of these shops and houses reportedly belonged to BNP-Jamaat men.
Police said the arson attacks and vadalisms took place at Nalta Bazar, Bishnapur bazaar and Gobindapur village in the morning. Fire Service, BGB and local residents doused the fires.
Md Abdullah, a witness and a victim, said all of a sudden some masked men swopped on a number of shops beside a mosque.
They masked miscreants, equipped with hockey sticks, machetes and axes, torched and vandalised an oil depot and four cloth stores.
“I was asleep during the attack and was woken up by loud cries. But before a BGB patrol team could arrive at the spot, the attackers fled,” he said.
Local BNP leader Rafiqul Islam Khokon claimed activists of Jubo League and Chhatra League, associate wings of the Awami League, lodged the attack. However, local Awami League leader Shamsur Rahman denied the allegations.
At Bishnupur Bazar and Gobindapur village, some 30-40 young men, equipped with locally-made weapons, torched a grocery shop and a clothing shop on Thursday night. They also torched around 15 houses of BNP-Jamaat activists.
OC of Kaliganj police station Biplob Shaha said the attackers could not be identified.
In Tangail, “unidentified assailants” shot dead UP chairman and BNP leader Dainna Rafiqul Islam Faruque, 52.
Nazrul Islam, OC of Tangail Model police station, said a group of criminals shot in Faruque in the head from point-blank around 6:30am at Battala Bazar near his house. The ciminals also stabbed him indiscriminately for confirming his death.
Local residents said Faruque was a popular third time UP chairman. His brother Azharul Islam Labu, president of a local unit of BNP’s student front Chhatra Dal, alleged that killers hired by the defeated chairman killed his brother.
Tangail district unit BNP is enforcing a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the upazila today protesting the killing.
Meanwhile, train communications on Dhaka-Sylhet and Dhaka-Chittagong routes remained halted for around eight hours after miscreants removed fishplates on the outer signal of Paghachang station in Brahmanbaria yesterday morning.
A Dhaka-bound advanced pilot train that was supposed to inspect any damage on the lines, derailed in Akhaura around 4am.
