Three people were killed on Sunday in clashes between supporters of the main opposition BNP and the ruling Awami League during a nationwide general strike, heightening tensions in Bangladesh ahead of the general elections expected in January.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by former premier Khaleda Zia, called a countrywide strike on Sunday to protest the police action that forced the party to abruptly end its grand rally a day earlier.
According to police, one activist of the BNP was killed after falling from an under-construction building in Dhaka’s Mohammadpur area when he tried to escape after setting a bus on fire.
BNP leaders, however, claimed that the deceased was returning home after the rally when rival Awami League activists whisked him to the building from where he was thrown on the ground while police stood as onlookers.
Police said one Awami League activist was killed in clashes during demonstrations by rival parties in the northwestern Lalmonirhat district.
Fire service and police said a bus driver’s assistant was killed and another injured when unidentified miscreants set on fire a bus in a predawn attack at the Demra area on the outskirts of the city.
A senior journalist, Rafiq Bhuiyan, who suffered injuries during clashes between police and opposition activists in Dhaka’s Kakrail area on Saturday, succumbed to his injuries on Sunday. According to media reports, several passenger buses were damaged or set on fire in the capital and elsewhere in the country throughout the day.
The development came a day after deadly clashes left two people, including a policeman, dead and over 200 wounded. Several ambulances, other vehicles, including motorbikes, entering the frontal part of Rajarbagh Central Police Hospital and a police booth were burnt. Earlier in the day, police arrested BNP secretary general or de facto party chief Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir from his home in the Gulshan neighbourhood, heightening tensions.
The BNP organised a grand rally here on Saturday demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to allow free and fair elections under a non-party interim government. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s party also held a peace rally in response to the Opposition rally. “We have taken him (Alamgir) to our custody for subsequent legal actions,” a spokesman of Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s detective branch told reporters.
Alamgir’s wife Rahat Ara said that the police initially visited their home, and left with a hard disk containing CCTV camera footage from their house and building. They later returned and took Alamgir, 75, into custody. “He (Fakhrul) is very ill,” the wife said.
BNP spokesman Zahir Uddin Swapan said police also made a series of raids on the homes of senior party leaders and claimed nearly 3,000 party activists and supporters have been detained. At the end of the day-long strike, BNP called for a “countrywide blockade” on October 31, November 1 and 2 protesting the killing of the party activists and the arrests of party leaders and activists, including Alamgir.
BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi made the announcement at a virtual press briefing, reiterating the party’s demand for elections under a non-partisan interim government.
Meanwhile, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said the opposition went on a rampage during their rally. “They (opposition activists) destroyed many (surveillance) cameras, yet many CCTV footages are available and stern legal actions await those involved in the attacks,” he told reporters.
Riot police overnight besieged the BNP’s central office while authorities called out paramilitary troops ahead of the countrywide strike, a day after violence gripped downtown Dhaka. Witnesses said armed police equipped with riot cars and water cannons took position around the empty main office of BNP, warning stern punitive actions against security breaches “in the name of stoppage”.
Traffic was relatively thin on the roads on Sunday morning. Many shops and businesses were shuttered in areas of possible spots of violence like Naya Paltan, Purana Paltan, and Motijheel. “A political party has called a strike. Police will take stern legal action if someone disrupts peoples’ free movement or tries to breach the security,” Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Habibur Rahman told a late-night media briefing.
Paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) deployed 11 platoons or over 300 troops to maintain public order in the capital.
Mass circulation Prothom Alo newspaper said police arrested at least 900 leaders and activists of BNP and its far-right ally Jamaat-e-Islami from across the country in the past 24 hours.
The BNP is demanding the restoration of the election-time non-party caretaker government system, under which four elections from 1991 to 2008 were held. The December 2008 elections installed Hasina’s Awami League, while the subsequent 2014 and 2008 polls were held under the incumbent government, which scrapped the constitutional provision after assuming office in January 2009.
BNP chairperson Zia, 79, who served as premier for two terms, is currently being treated in a specialised private hospital with severe chronic ailments for several weeks. Before being shifted to hospital, she was under house arrest to serve a 17-year prison term on two graft charges.
Her elder son Tarique Rahman, also a “fugitive convict” on several criminal charges steers the party from London, where he is believed to have sought asylum.
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Major Western nations, including the US, are calling for the Bangladesh polls to be fair, credible and inclusive for the sake of democracy.
The European Union on Sunday said the EU and its member states in Dhaka were deeply saddened to see the loss of life and violence on the streets. In a post on X, the EU said it is vital that a peaceful way forward for participatory and peaceful elections is found.
On Thursday, Bangladesh’s independent Election Commission said it was yet to see a “favourable environment” for the scheduled January 2024 polls.
We want to organise the election. As the organiser, we would like to say the favourable environment we were expecting has not been achieved yet,” Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Habibul Awal told journalists. Awal, however, said his office was preparing to hold the election as scheduled.
