The 60-hour nonstop countrywide hartal, called by the BNP-led 18-party alliance, began at 6 am today (Sunday).
The shutdown, enforced by the opposition despite the Prime Minister’s request to withdraw it, will end at 6pm on Tuesday.
Giving the government until Saturday to initiate dialogue over the polls-time nonpartisan cabinet, opposition leader Khaleda Zia from a rally of the 18-party alliance on Friday announced to enforce the hartal programme if the regime does not come up with a positive response.
On Saturday evening, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina phoned Opposition Leader and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia over cellphone and requested her to withdraw their three-day hartal as well as meet her at Ganobhaban over dinner on Monday for talks over the election-time cabinet.
Apparently turning down Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s offer to have a dialogue over the current political crisis on Monday, Khaleda told her arch rival that she would sit with her only after the end of their scheduled hartal programme.
Meanwhile, miscreants torched six vehicles in different places of the city on Saturday, ahead of the BNP-led 18-party’s shutdown programme. However, there was no report of any casualty in the arson attacks.
Police arrested 31 people suspecting their involvement in exploding bombs and torching vehicles from different parts of the capital on Saturday.
A senior Dhaka Metropolitan Police official said the law enforcers also recovered 11 live crude bombs tossed in different areas in the capital hours ahead of the hartal.
Pro-hartal activists, especially Islami Chhatra Shibir men, allegedly set off crude bombs at a number of targets, including the houses of Law Minister Barrister Shafique Ahmed, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakib Uddin Ahmad and Appellate Division judge Justice SK Sinha, on Saturday.
In another incident, senior newsroom editor of Channel Ekattur received serious splinter injuries as a bomb exploded in front of his office at Baridhara at about 6:30 pm.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police has taken all-out measures to ensure the security of the city dwellers to avert any unpleasant incident in the capital during the opposition-sponsored hartal.
Sources at the DMP headquarters said over 12,000 additional police will remain on alert at different strategic points of the city to fend off any untoward incident.
Besides, plainclothes police will remain there with still and video cameras at a number of strategic city points to identify the troublemakers during the hartal hours.
Source: UNBConnect
