The third day of the 71-hour rail-road-waterway blockade programme, enforced by the BNP-led 18-party alliance, was marked by stray incidents of bomb explosions, arson attacks and vandalism of vehicles across the country on Thursday.
The marathon blockade programme will end at 5am on Friday.
The BNP-led opposition combine originally enforced a 48-hour blockade programme at 6am Tuesday protesting the announcement of the schedule for the next general election. However, the alliance on Wednesday extended it by 23 hours.
According to reports reaching the UNB news desk, violent incidents like vandalising and torching of vehicles, clashes between blockade supporters and police and ruling party activists, arrest of opposition leaders and activists and crude bomb blasts were reported from the capital and different districts, including Sylhet, Laxmipur, Bogra, Lalmonirhat, Dinajpur and Rajshahi.
Besides, train communications of north Bengal with Dhaka remained suspended till Thursday afternoon as blockaders removed fishplates and uprooted rail lines at Chhatiantala in Bogra districts early Thursday.
Meanwhile, train communications on Dhaka-Mymensingh, Dhaka- Chittagong, Dhaka-Sylhet and Khulna-Dhaka routes, which were suspended following the removal of fishplates from the rail track and uprooting of rail lines, resumed after several hours.
In the capital, at least 17 people, including a reporter of private television ETV Susmita Sen and her mother Gita Sen, sustained burn injuries as a bus was torched in the city’s Shahbagh area during the blockade.
Sources at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) said miscreants set fire to the ‘Bihanga Paribahan’ bus near the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh around 5:45pm after pouring petrol into it, leaving its 17 passengers injured.
Besides, at least six crude bombs were exploded by the blockade supporters in the city’s Azimpur, Laxmibazar and Pragati Sarani areas in the morning.
The blockaders torched two vehicles — one bus and one truck — at Paribahan near Ibne Sina Hospital in Dhanmondi area around 9:00am and in Kanchpur Bridge area around 7:00am.
Several processions supporting the blockade were brought out by Jamaat-e-Islami, Jubo Dal and Chhatra Dal activists in the city’s Tejgaon, Bijoy Sarani, Azimpur and Mirpur-13 areas.
Later, police dispersed the processions.
Huge law enforcers were guarding the city streets to avoid any untoward incident.
Meanwhile, addressing a press briefing at BNP’s Nayapaltan central office about the 3rd day of the 71-hour blockade, BNP joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi claimed an opposition activist was killed in firings by law enforcers during the third day of the blockade.
Besides, he said, police arrested over 350 opposition activists across the country during the hartal hours, while more than 900 were injured in attacks by law enforcers and ‘ruling party cadres’.
Over 6,000 opposition men were implicated in fresh ‘false’ cases, he further claimed.
Rizvi said at least nine opposition leaders and activists were killed and over 3,000 injured during the three-day of the blockade from Tuesday to Thursday 4pm.
Earlier, the first and second days of the blockade were marked by violent incidents like clashes, arson attacks, bomb blasts and vandalism in different parts of the country that left 15 people dead.
Source: UNBConnect