Khaleda Zia is being accused in a lawsuit of having a hand in deadly violence over airport project protest
Bangladesh’s main opposition party yesterday announced a nationwide general strike next week to protest former prime minister Khaleda Zia being accused in a lawsuit of having a hand in deadly violence that broke out over an airport project.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain said at a rally in the capital Dhaka that the strike would be held on Monday as he asked the government to immediately drop the name of Zia, also the chief of the party, from the case.
A ruling Awami League leader on Tuesday filed the lawsuit against Zia and several thousand villagers, accusing them of killing a police officer, vandalising public property and obstructing traffic on a busy highway on Monday during a series of clashes between law enforcement and the
villagers.
The villagers took to the streets to oppose government plans for land acquisition to construct an international airport at Arial Beel, 30km south-west of Dhaka. Scores of people were injured.
The BNP has opposed the airport’s construction, arguing that existing airports are underused.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina hinted at a weekly cabinet meeting yesterday said her government will not push for building a new international airport at a location about 40km from Dhaka, after protests that turned violent this week.
There will be no airport in Arial Beel “against the will of the people”, she said at her cabinet meeting, in a reversal of her government’s earlier
decision.
The re-location had been decided without a pre-feasibility study because of the “whims” of some officials, the Daily Star said.
It quoted aviation experts as saying that upgrading of the Shahjalal International airport, the name by which the airport at Dhaka is known, could meet the demand for the next 25 years. DPA/IANS