Dhaka: Violent clashes, resulting in injuries and death, have marked the beginning of a three-day hartal (general strike), starting Tuesday, called by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) — the country’s principal opposition party — against the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh.
On Tuesday morning, the BNP, led by former Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, shared the video of a blood-covered man being lifted from the street onto a cycle rickshaw, on its official Facebook page. The party claimed the man to be a labour union leader, killed in police firing during the BNP’s “peaceful protest march” in Kishoregunj district Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, news of BNP cadre clashing with the police have been reported from Narayangunj in central Bangladesh. Local media quoted a senior police officer as saying that an officer-in-charge, three policemen and at least 20 others have been reportedly injured in the clashes. Of the three policemen injured, two were allegedly hacked with machetes by the BNP cadre. The cadre also reportedly stopped traffic on the Dhaka-Sylhet Road and resorted to arson. Three BNP workers were reportedly held.
Videos showing BNP cadre on rampage in several districts of Bangladesh were telecast by news channels. In one such video, an ambulance appears to be attacked by a mob as it tries to pass through a violent street demonstration.
The ruling Awami League shared a video on social media platform X (previously Twitter) alleging BNP members attacked an ambulance carrying a patient.
Can we call this attack a fight for #democracy? @bdbnp78 cadres attacks ambulance taking serious patient.
With slogans “we will continue to set fire and occupy street ”, #BNP rioters, armed with sticks, did not spare an ambulance that was carrying patient in Narayanganj… pic.twitter.com/0dlRYRw5P8
— Awami League (@albd1971) October 31, 2023
The BNP’s three-day hartal from Tuesday has been called to protest against what the opposition party has termed a violent crackdown on its leaders and cadre over the weekend, while they were demanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation.
Tuesday’s violence was preceded by reports of clashes, death and injuries over the weekend, as Bangladesh remained on boil, with the ruling party, opposition and police trading allegations.
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A bloody weekend
On Saturday, the BNP had told its cadre to assemble in large numbers for a grand rally against the government at Dhaka’s Nayapaltan area, where the opposition party has its central office in the city.
On the same day, the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, had organised rallies in the Bangladesh capital, while the ruling Awami League was holding its own rally to counter the opposition rallies.
As a result, the administration had deployed security personnel in large numbers in Dhaka, to keep the situation under control.
As the BNP rally “turned violent”, police reportedly fired teargas to disperse the mob that had allegedly begun pelting stones at security personnel. In the clashes, one policeman died and several others were injured. Journalists were also injured in the clashes and vehicles, ambulances and police pickets were set on fire.
From the Nayapaltan area, clashes between the BNP workers and the policemen reportedly spread to other areas of Dhaka, including Fakirapul, Shantinagar and Kakrail. The police hospital in the Rajarbagh area was also reportedly attacked. More than 100 were injured in the clashes.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain told reporters Saturday that his officers were victims of “opposition attacks”. “The constable who died was hit on the head by opposition activists,” he said.
The ruling Awami League took to X to condemn the attack and said, “This attack only emboldens BNP’s plot to hit the streets to overthrow the government through violence in sync with the call by its acting chief Tarique Rahman who was described by foreign envoys as a symbol of violent politics and (is) a fugitive of justice.”
Talking to ThePrint Saturday, BNP’s vice-chairman of central committee Nitai Roy Chowdhury countered the charges levelled against his party by the Awami League and the police.
Roy Chowdhury claimed he was on stage at the site of the rally in Nayapaltan, along with other senior BNP leaders like Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, and saw for himself what transpired.
“We had planned to hold a peaceful rally demanding that a caretaker government be installed before elections. But the Awami League cadre attacked our cadre with rods and sticks. That started the violence,” he said.
Following Saturday’s clashes, the BNP Sunday called a dawn-to-dusk nationwide strike.
Sunday turned out to be no different, as an activist of the Shramik League — the labour union of the Awami League — was killed, allegedly in an attack by the BNP cadre at Mahendranagar in Sadar Upazilla of Lalmonirhat district. Two other Awami League activists were also allegedly injured in the attack.
Now, the three-day hartal which began Tuesday has also turned violent.
What does the BNP want?
The BNP wants Sheikh Hasina to step down and a caretaker government to assume power in Bangladesh before it agrees to participate in the national elections. Elections in Bangladesh are scheduled to be held in January next year.
On its official Facebook page, BNP’s acting chairman and Khaleda Zia’s son, Tarique Rahman, who runs the party remotely from London, appealed to Bangladeshi citizens Monday to brave the hartals and blockades in the coming days so the country can see a better tomorrow.
In another post, the BNP said that the call for the fresh spell of “peaceful hartal”, after the one it held Sunday, was to protest against the injustice, inefficient governance, large-scale corruption, cash smuggling and proliferation of illegal syndicates that have resulted in inflation hurting the common man.
With the hashtags, “#TakeBackBangladesh” and “#StepDownHasina”, the post added that the party is also protesting the attack on its cadre on 28 October and the arrest of its secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and other senior leaders and workers following Saturday’s rally, as well as door-to-door searches, harassment of its cadre and police brutality on its cadre.
The BNP’s demand for Hasina to step down is not new. Almost a year ago, the top brass of the BNP had fixed 10 December, 2022 for a nationwide agitation to topple the government. “The country will be run on the directives of Zias [Khaleda Zia and Tarique Rahman Zia] from December 10 onwards,” the media had quoted BNP leader Amanullah Aman as saying in a report published on 20 November last year.
Three days before the rally was supposed to take place, a BNP worker was reportedly killed and at least 30 others injured after a clash allegedly erupted between the police and party workers in front of BNP’s central office in Nayapaltan.
“Witnesses said the law enforcers fired teargas shells, shotgun pellets to disperse the BNP men while the party activists and supporters retaliated by hurling brick chips,” it was reported.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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