It’s around 11:30am. The red, yellow and green lights of the traffic signal are alternating at normal intervals. Vehicles are moving at a speed of less than 5 kilometres an hour. As the red light comes on, drivers step on the breaks, creating a one kilometre tailback, lasting the duration of the signal, on either side of the Purana Paltan four-way intersection in Dhaka.
Like on any other day, the situation at the intersection is the familiar traffic jam, which is to be expected at one of the most congested crossings in the capital.
But yesterday was not a normal day, although it seemed so. It was a hartal enforced by the Jamaat-e-Islami across the country, to protest the death sentences of its leaders convicted of war crimes.
It was not just at the Purana Paltan intersection, but across the capital, in other busy areas, like Mirpur, Karwan Bazar, Shyamoli, Shahbagh, Science Laboratory Road, New Market, Kakrail, Moghbazar, Badda, Mohakhali, Gulshan, Khilkhet and Uttara, this correspondent found movement unaffected by the hartal.
Huge numbers of public buses, private cars, human hauliers, auto and pedal rickshaws were out and about on all the main roads carrying office-goers, businessmen and just about everybody else as they would on any other day.
Ariful Islam, an employee of a garment factory, was waiting for a bus at Farmgate early in the morning. He said: “I was a little bit late to get ready for office as I thought I would get any bus easily today.”
“But I have been waiting for about thirty minutes to go to my office in Uttara.”
With a look of surprise etched across his face, he said: “Strange!...the number of vehicles and the commuter rush is the same as a normal day.”
“I failed to get on a bus as most of them are already full of passengers,” he said.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, many commuters expressed their deep dissatisfaction over the Jamaat enforced hartal.
Didarul Alam, an official of a government bank, said: “This political party [Jamaat] is not concerned about the welfare of the people. They are only concerned about their leaders.”
Jammat is exhibiting a double standard over their leaders’ verdict at the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), he said.
“When the ICT gives a verdict of life in prison for their leaders, Jamaat accepts it easily. But when the ICT hands down a death penalty, it calls strikes and its activists start picketing and blasting bombs,” he said.
“I think such hartals are contemptuous of the ICT and the Supreme Court verdict against the war criminals,” he added.
Rafiqul Islam, a resident of Gulshan, said: “The sufferings of city dwellers nowadays have crossed the limit due to the hartals called by Jamaat. Necessary steps should be taken to protest such illegal activities of the party.”
Echoing Rafiqul’s sentiments, Abdullah, an ATCL Paribahan driver said the owners of their buses strictly ordered them to continue services on hartal days.
On October 29, Jamaat announced a 72-hour countrywide strike in two phases protesting the death sentence of Motiur Rahman Nizami.
On November 2, they again called another 24-hour strike for yesterday, after the ICT on that day condemned party leader Mir Quasem Ali to death for crimes against humanity.
On November 3, the party again announced a further 24-hour strike for November 5, as the Supreme Court that day upheld the death penalty for Jamaat leader and war criminal Muhammad Kamaruzzaman.
But on visits to different parts of the city yesterday, this correspondent found that all the city’s government and private offices, shopping hubs, hotels, restaurants, and even footpath stalls and hawkers’ markets remained open as on non-hartal days.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Riazul, a hawker at Farmgate, expressed worries about his livelihood during hartals.
He said: “If I stay at home on hartal days, who will give me food and daily needs? Where will I get money?”
“Not only me, other hawkers also have kept their shops open,” he said.
“We [hawkers] have all decided to keep open our shops during the Jamaat enforced hartal days. If the pickets try to attack us, we will retaliate too,” he added.
Owners of inter-district buses, however, said they had suspended their services fearing attacks on their buses.
Few local buses were seen leaving different terminals, including Gabtoli, Sayedabad, Mohakhali.
Masudur Rahman, deputy commissioner at the media centre of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), told the Dhaka Tribune that police had detained only two pickets from the capital.
“Apart from that, we have found no incidents of violence in the city,” he said.
“City life was entirely normal, and city dwellers moved about easily and without fear,” he added.
A team of Rapid Action Battalion 2 recovered 27 crude bombs from beside the offices of Bangla daily Amader Somoy in the capital’s Tejgaon area on Thursday, around 8:30pm.
Commander Mufti Mahmud Khan, director of the legal and media wing of the elite force, told the Dhaka Tribune: “Acting on a tip-off, a special team of RAB 2 recovered the crude bombs around 8:30pm.”
“We are suspecting that miscreants might have brought these bombs to the area to conduct subversive activities as many important government and private offices are located there.”
“RAB diffused the bombs and an investigation is underway. We are trying to arrest the persons involved,” he added.
Our correspondents from different districts also reported that no incidents of violence took place during hartal hours.
In Chittagong, the hartal passed off without any incidents of violence and 14 upazilas of the district.
Public transportation and CNG-run auto rickshaws were seen plying the city streets without disruption. Train services left the station on time although buses were not seen on the highways.
In Gazipur, local police arrested 59 activists of Jamaat-Shibir from different areas of the district on charges of arson during hartal hours.
Joydebpur police station OC Rezaul Hasan said a local court sent them to jail.
In Barguna, police arrested three Jamaat activists along with bomb making materials at a check post in Pashchim Safipur Chapdar area in the Bamna upazila. Two accomplices however, managed to evade arrest.
Confirming the incident, Bamna police station OC Omar Faroque said a case was filed against them under the explosives act.
In Khagrachhari, Jamaat eased the enforcement of its hartal in the hilly district because of the ongoing Kathin Chibor Dan event, a major Buddhist religious festival.
In Satkhira, police arrested 50 people, including 35 Jamaat-Shibir activists from different areas of the district. No processions or rallies were seen in support of the hartal.
Vehicular movement was usual within the district town although no long-route buses were visible on the highways.
It was business as usual at the Bhomra land port.
