Hundreds injured in Bangladesh opposition strike protest

Police stand guard in front of the hotel where the visiting Indian President Pranab Mukherjee is staying during a nationwide strike called by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, in Dhaka yesterday.

IANS/Dhaka

Incidents of clash, arson, vandalism and detention were reported in parts of Bangladesh during the main opposition’s nationwide general strike yesterday, leaving hundreds of people injured.

Rubber bullets and live ammunition were reportedly fired to disperse stone-throwing protesters in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country during the strike also supported by Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, a key ally of former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s main opposition alliance.

Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) declared the nationwide dawn-to-dusk strike to protest at what it said government’s corruption, misrule, oppression and “mass killings”.

At least 76 people including seven police and 39 Jamaat-e-Islami activists were killed and hundreds of others injured in the riots after a tribunal awarded death sentence to the Jamaat’s vice president Delwar Hosssain Sayeede for war crimes in 1971, on February 28.

Due to BNP’s strike, which followed Jamaat’s non-stop 48-hour strike, the usually busy streets of the capital looked almost deserted as most means of public and private transportation were off the roads, Xinhua reported.

Police also charged batons and used tear gas to disperse demonstrators who were blocking major roads. Dozens of vehicles were reportedly smashed or set on fire.

Although inter-district buses were suspended, the authorities claimed that operation of trains, ferries and flights was normal.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ruling Bangladesh Awami League activists staged anti-strike processions in many city streets.

Senior BNP spokesman Rizvi Ahmed claimed that “at least 250 party leaders and activists were injured as law enforcers attacked them when they tried to bring out processions in support of the strike.”

The law enforcers detained around 200 party leaders and activists during the strike hours and lodged “false” cases against about 4,000 party men, he said.

Kazi Ziauddin, a senior spokesman of Bangladesh police, refuted Ahmed’s claims, saying: “It’s beyond question since today’s situation was far better.”

“There were no reports of major violence across the country apart from some stray incidents.”