Dhaka, Jul 17 (PTI) Military troops, paramilitary forces and riot police on Thursday patrolled the thoroughfares in Gopalganj, the home town of Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, to ensure a 22-hour curfew after 14 people were detained following clashes that left four dead.
Military soldiers in battle gear hoisting red flags in armoured personnel carriers were moving throughout the south-western Gaopalganj town where residents were forced to stay indoors, businesses were shut and transport off the roads after Wednesday’s violence, officials said.
Four people were killed in clashes over an National Citizen Party (NCP) rally, which turned into a virtual battlefield as hundreds of supporters of Rahman’s daughter and deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina clashed with police, ahead of the planned march of the student-led party.
“A tense calm has gripped Gopalganj,” a local journalist said over phone from the town, about 160 kilometres southwest of Dhaka.
Police said they have so far detained 14 people overnight for their alleged involvement in violent clashes but no case was filed in the incident as yet.
“The joint forces handed over the 14 individuals to us,” Abdullah Al Mamun, inspector (investigation) of Gopalganj Sadar Police Station, was quoted as saying by local media.
Filing of cases is underway, he added Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus’ office said a 22-hour curfew has been ordered from 8 pm Wednesday for Gopalganj, adding the perpetrators of the attack on the NCP would not go unpunished.
The NCP emerged as an offshoot of Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group that led last year’s violent street protests and eventually toppled Hasina’s 16-year Awami League regime on August 5, 2024.
Meanwhile, the interim government overnight formed a committee to investigate the Gopalganj violence with home ministry’s senior secretary Nasimul Ghani as its leader and two additional secretaries from law and public administration ministries as members.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, NCP convenor Nahid Islam, said: “We will liberate Gopalganj and entire Bangladesh from Mujibust terrorism and fascism.” “Mujibist terrorists had carried out a planned armed attack with a deliberate attempt to kill us,” he said, adding, “After so many killings by Awami League in the peoples’ uprising, many wanted its return as a refined Awami League after August 5.” “They should keep in mind Awami League is not a political party, rather a terrorist organisation,” Islam claimed in his post.
He also alleged that despite the NCP demands, the arrest of people from Awami League and its students wing, Chhatra League, were not made “in a massive way” and even many of those who were arrested secured bails from court or continued to escape from police stations.
Earlier on Wednesday, security arrangements were made to facilitate a planned rally by the NCP. According to media reports and witnesses, the protesters, equipped with bamboo sticks and brickbats, clashed with police and security forces, including the army and paramilitary Bangladesh Border Guards (BGB).
Protesters vandalised the vehicles of police and that of the local administrative chief, alongside launching an assault on the NCP convoy, prompting the law enforcement agencies to fire gunshots, according to reports.
The NCP managed to proceed with the rally on the vandalised stage with broken sound systems, chaired by its convenor Nahid Islam, vowing to ensure justice themselves if law enforcement agencies failed to do so.
An editor of a local newspaper, preferring anonymity, and several other local residents said not just the Awami League activists but also ordinary residents of the town and even workers of former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party took to the street to prevent the NCP rally.
In February, thousands of protesters set fire to the residence of Rahman, also known as Bangabandhu, in 32 Dhanmondi in Dhaka, which was converted into a memorial.
Hasina, 77, has been living in India since August 5 last year, when she fled Bangladesh following a massive student-led protest that toppled her Awami League’s 16-year regime. PTI SCY/AR NPK NPK
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