BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia addressing a press conference after police lifted the siege on her Gulshan office in Dhaka on Monday.


IANS/Dhaka

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) called a 48-hour strike in Dhaka and Khulna divisions of the country from today, alongside the ongoing transport strike.
“The strike will begin at 6am Wednesday and continue until 6am Friday,” said the party’s joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, bdnews24.com
reported.
“The joint forces are tormenting our leaders through their operations. Several Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (student-wing of BNP) leaders have been killed in the past few days.”
Rizvi urged party workers to enforce the strike peacefully to protest the abuse.
He said the shutdown will be held alongside the road blockade.
On Monday, BNP chief Khaleda Zia announced that her party will continue the blockade of the country, ending hopes of a quick solution to the two-week crisis in the country that began with her being confined to her office and which has now been lifted.
The BNP chief, who was confined to her Gulshan office for 15 days, called the blockade on January 5 when police barred her from leaving her office to lead anti-government agitations.
The BNP-led opposition alliance had boycotted the general election in Bangladesh in January, last year and has been pressing for fresh elections since then.
Zia’s 20-party opposition alliance has been observing a non-stop blockade across the country demanding fresh elections under a non-party
caretaker government system.
According to a Xinhua report, the wave of violence has so far left 27 people dead and several hundred injured as anti-government protesters battled with law enforcers, attacked rivals, torched vehicles and targeted railway since January 6 when Zia’s BNP-led opposition alliance enforced a nationwide, non-stop rail-road-waterway blockade.
On Monday, Zia welcomed the government’s withdrawal of police from her office, but said: “The government forced (us) to call the blockade.”
Zia urged her supporters and the people of Bangladesh to continue with the agitation. “It will continue until further
announcement,” she added.