4 killed during hartal; shutdown called again for today
Shibir activists beat up a policeman with his own weapon at Fatullah of Narayanganj yesterday.
Jamaat-Shibir activists continued to be on the rampage and clashed with law enforcers in different parts of the country yesterday, the second day of hartal in protest at the verdict in the war crimes trial of ex-Jamaat-e-Islami chief Ghulam Azam.
The violence left three persons and a child dead and scores of others, including 10 policemen, wounded in the districts of Satkhira, Dinajpur and Gazipur. The death toll rose to nine in two days.
In contrast, the hartal called by the youths of Shahbagh and 10 left-leaning student organisations passed peacefully.
They called the hartal demanding the death penalty for Ghulam Azam, who was sentenced by International Crimes Tribunal-1 on Monday to 90 years in prison for masterminding genocide and other crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.
The Jamaat has also called for another daylong shutdown today and threatened to extend its today’s hartal to 24 hours, if its Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed is convicted of wartime offences by a tribunal, which is set to deliver the verdict this morning.
The country virtually has fallen into a hartal trap with five continuous hartals beginning from Sunday. There will be no working day until next Sunday if the Jamaat enforces hartal tomorrow.
The country’s businesses, according to Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DCCI), lose around Tk 1,600 crore, including Tk 200 crore in the garment sector, each hartal day.
Considering the huge economic loss, the apex trade body the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) and DCCI yesterday expressed deep concern and called upon the government and all political parties to take attempts to avoid hartals in the holy month.
During yesterday’s hartal, Jamaat Shibir men vandalised and torched many vehicles, blasted crude bombs, blocked roads and highways in parts of the country, unleashing a reign of terror.
In the capital, they targeted the media vehicles as they vandalised at least 10 vehicles of English daily Dhaka Tribune and Ntv.
Shibir activists torch two lorries, including an oil tanker, at Fatullah, Narayanganj, yesterday during the dawn-to-dusk hartal called to protest the sentencing of former Jamaat ameer Ghulam Azam to jail for crimes against humanity.
In the wake of their last two days’ violent activities many people fear of fresh spell of terror today after the war crimes tribunal’s verdict in the war crimes charges against Jamaat second-in-command Mojaheed.
Earlier, Jamaat-Shibir men in five days from February 28 to March 4 unleashed mayhem at least 18 districts to protest the verdict against its leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee who was awarded death sentence for war crimes. The violence left 74 people, including six police men dead, and more than thousand other injured.
At that time, temples and houses of minorities at least 14 districts came under attack allegedly by Jamaat-Shibir men. Many houses of minorities were also looted during the mayhem.
Workers try to reinstall the sleeper clips criminals removed from around 300 metre stretch of rail lines in Dighi area of Bogra town early yesterday.
Source: The Daily Star