BNP rally foiled amid violence
Downtown Dhaka turned into a battlefield yesterday as BNP activists and police clashed, leading to the death of a policeman and a ward-level BNP leader.
Many others were injured.
The opposition party has called a countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal today, in response to the police action that forced BNP to abruptly end its Nayapaltan grand rally.
Separately, Jamaat-e-Islami has also called for a nationwide daylong strike in protest of police action and arrests of its leaders and activists from itsrally in Arambagh.
The ruling Awami League vowed to resist the hartal at any cost. It will also hold “peace rallies” across the country today.
The developments raise the spectre of violence in the lead-up to the national election slated for January.
Although the BNP programme was peaceful in the beginning, tension flared up as the day wore on.
At least 10 vehicles and a police box were torched while over a dozen vehicles were vandalised during the clashes that took place in Kakrail, Nayapaltan, Bijoynagar, Malibagh, Arambagh areas and near Matsya Bhaban.
Dozens of people, including law enforcers, BNP activists and journalists, were hurt in pitched battles.
The streets in those areas were strewn with brick chips and the air was thick with smoke as law enforcers lobbed hundreds teargas shells, threw sound grenades and used firearms to disperse the BNP leaders and activists who had gathered at Nayapaltan and adjacent areas since morning.
Later at the night, three more vehicles were torched by arsonists in the Kalshi area of Dhaka city, Hemayetpur in Savar, and Konabari in Gazipur, police said.
Tension had been high over the last few days centring on the high-stake BNP and AL rallies within a radius of two kilometres.
The BNP organised its rally, joined by tens of thousands of its activists from Dhaka and elsewhere, in front of its headquarters to press home its demand for elections under a non-partisan interim government. The AL held its “peace and development rally” at Baitul Mukarram south gate to counter BNP’s.
HOW THE CLASH SPREAD
Since morning, BNP leaders and activists started thronging the rally venue indroves, chanting anti-government slogans. By 11:00am, the entire road stretching from Kakrail intersection to Notre Dame college in Arambagh was packed by party activists and supporters.
Things started to heat up around 11:30am when the ruling party activists on two pickups and a bus were stopped by BNP activists near Kakrail mosque. The AL men were heading towards the Baitul Mukarram mosque to attend their rally, police and witnesses said.
The BNP activists vandalised the pickups and the bus, and a clash ensued. Police present at the spot detained one man involved in vandalism, they said.
Following the clash, more BNP activists rushed to the spot and were seen intercepting pedestrians. Around 12:30pm, they started chanting slogans denouncing police and hurling brick chunks at them, according to our correspondents present at the scene.
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