Panicked, passengers jump out of a bus as pro-hartal pickets blast crude bombs from a procession at the capital’s Khilgaon yesterday.
The opposition-sponsored 60-hour shutdown ended yesterday claiming five more lives, including three at the last moment.
The three deaths were reported from Kutubdia in Cox’s Bazar while a BNP activist was killed allegedly in a police firing in Magura.
A ruling party man succumbed to injuries in Kishoreganj on Monday night, raising the death toll from clashes to 14 as of last night since the shutdown began on Sunday.
An unidentified body was recovered from a canal in Boalkhali upazila in Chittagong two hours after a clash between the activists of ruling and opposition parties there.
The BNP-Jamaat men continued to rampage and clashed with ruling Awami League activists and law enforcers in different parts of the country on the last day of the hartal, demanding a non-party polls-time government.
Nine journalists, including two in the capital, came under attacks yesterday.
Kafi Kamal, senior reporter of Manabzamin, and three policemen were injured as unidentified persons hurled two crude bombs in front of the BNP headquarters at Nayapaltan in the evening, police said.
Law enforcers picked up three from the spot, Saifur Rahman, assistant commissioner of Motijheel zone, told The Daily Star.
The bombs were thrown from inside the BNP office around 6:30pm, the police official claimed.
The bombs were blasted in the middle of a crowd of mostly police members and journalists, Touhid Shanto, a reporter of private television channel ATN News told The Daily Star.
Identity of the injured cops and detainees could not be known immediately.
Around the same time, Kazi Mainul Islam, officer-in-charge of Hazaribagh Police Station, came under attack by activists of Islami Chhatra Shibir on Dhanmondi Road-19, said Sheikh Maruf Hasan, deputy police commissioner of Ramna Division.
He was rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Rahima Akter, daughter of Abdus Sobhan, a scrap metal trader of West Jurain, sustained severe splinter injuries in her eyes when a homemade bomb went off while she was playing in Balurmath area of Jurain around 10:30am.
The pickets blasted two crude bombs in many places, leaving at least three people injured in Nazir Bazar.
In Cox’s Bazar, three Jamaat supporters were killed and eight others sustained bullet injuries in clashes with police at South Dhurong Bazar, the village of Jamaat-e-Islami central leader and lawmaker Hamidur Rahman Azad, around 6:00pm.
Seven policemen were also injured in the clash that continued for more than two hours.
The dead were identified as Mohammad Yunus, 20, son of Md Alamgir; Abu Bakkar Siddique, 65, son of late Yusuf Ali; and Ismail Parvez, son of Abu Bakar. All the three were residents of the village.
Witnesses and police said Jamaat-Shibir activists brought out a procession and fired at police without any provocation.
As police retaliated, 10 Jamaat-Shibir men were wounded, said Jahirul Islam Khan, officer-in-charge of Kutubdia police station. Yunus and Bakkar died on the way to Chittagong Medical College Hospital.
BNP called a daylong hartal in Cox’s Bazar for tomorrow, protesting the death.
In Magura, BNP activist Maruf, 25, was killed when police opened fire to control a clash between the activists of ruling AL and the opposition, reported our Jessore correspondent.
Maruf was the son of Afsar Ali of Nityanandapur in Mohammadpur upazila.
The Upazila BNP called a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the upazila for today in protest against the killing.
The clash erupted at Baraiya Bazar in the upazila around 11:00am as the activists of BNP and Jamaat tried to set fire to shops in the area and the AL men tried to resist them, said Nuruzzaman, assistant sub-inspector of Mohammadpur Police Station.
Police fired five rubber bullets and lobbed several teargas canisters to bring the situation under control, he said. The ASI, however, said they did not know how Maruf was killed.
The victim was rushed at Magura Sadar Hospital around 1:00pm but he was already dead by the time, said Dr Arun Kanti of the hospital.
Kabir Murad, president of Magura district BNP unit, told The Daily Star that the deceased is a BNP worker and he died in police firing.
Sher Ali, a ward-level AL leader in Kishoreganj, succumbed to his injuries at Zahirul Islam Medical College at Bajitpur around 11:30pm on Monday.
Mobarak Hossain, joint convener of Bajitpur upazila AL, claimed that Sher Ali sustained bullet injuries in his leg and had hit by brick chips on his chest during a clash between the opposition and ruling party supporters on Monday noon.
In Chittagong, body of an unidentified man was recovered from a canal in Boalkhali upazila area around 3:00pm. Earlier, a clash between AL and BNP activists took place there and police had to fire 22 rounds of rubber bullets to bring the situation under control, said police.
In Rajshahi, pickets blasted a crude bomb near the residence of International Crimes Tribunal’s Chief Prosecutor Ghulam Arief Tipoo at Upashahar in the city on Monday night, damaging two windowpanes. None was hurt.
Incidents of explosion, vandalism, road blockade, chase and counter chase and arson also took place in Madaripur, Satkhira, Lalmonirhat, Bogra, Sylhet, Moulvibazar, Chapainawabganj, Jamalpur, Barisal, Narail, Kurigram, Chandpur, Jessore, Pirojpur, Jhenidah, Dinajpur.
Source: The Daily Star
