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Hasina threatens more hartals at month-end

Asks coalition to step down, unveils March 9-22 protest programmes

Staff Correspondent
Awami League (AL) President Sheikh Hasina yesterday rejected Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's call to give up hartal before a huge procession and said her party along with allies would enforce more hartals at the month-end against 'the misrule of the government'.
"After the end of the SSC examinations on March 24, we'll consider calling more hartals demanding resignation of the Khaleda regime," Hasina, also the leader of the opposition, told thousands of demonstrators from a truck in front of her Bangabandhu Avenue party headquarters before the beginning of the procession.
She asked the Khaleda Zia administration to step down immediately, showing respect to people's desire. She alleged that people had no confidence in the present BNP-Jamaat coalition government as it totally failed to run Bangladesh.
The demonstrators of the AL and its front organisations paraded through different city roads for hours shouting anti-government slogans and carrying banners reading 'People Don't Want the Anti-people Government Any More', 'Step Down Immediately', and 'Khaleda's quit is Our One-point Demand', while many beat drums.
The main opposition brought out the procession for the immediate resignation of the government and snap polls and unveiled protest day programmes from March 9 to March 22 across Bangladesh against what it said were repression, price hike and attack on prominent writer Humayun Azad along with the resignation. The procession coincided with historic March 7, 1971 --
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman set the tune for the Liberation War from a huge public rally at the now Suhrawardy Udyan.
Justifying her calls for hartal, Hasina said: "Had the country been run properly, there had been no violence and corruption, no price hike of essentials and people had lived in peace and happiness, we would have not called the hartals."
She said the ills along with 'siphoning off wealth abroad, violation of human rights, persecution of opposition political activists under the Khaleda regime' forced the AL and others to call hartals.
On reneging on no-hartal commitment, the former prime minister said: "My non-hartal announcement was met with more violent hartals by the former opposition BNP. The BNP had enforced 382 hartals during the five-year AL rule."
Referring to the price spiral of baby milk, Hasina came down heavily on the government wondering how they could "do business" with the food of babies.
Alleging corruption by the prime minister's family and its cronies, she said they bought kerosene as agents from India without tender.
Referring to a recent statement by New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Hasina said, "The government earned the nation the first position in repression on journalists in Asia after the epithets of the most corrupt nation in the world and a terror-risk country."
A CPJ delegation in Dhaka on Friday pegged Bangladesh as the most violent country for journalists in Asia.
In the largest haul of foreign banknotes at Dhaka airport recently, the AL chief smelt the hands of ruling alliance men in the attempted smuggling.
The leaders and activists of the AL began to converge on the road in front of the AL headquarters in procession from different parts of Dhaka and by 4:00pm, the gathering spilled over into adjacent roads, lanes and by-lanes.
Hasina reached the scene at 4:15pm.
The procession continued to grow every moment with the joining of people on its march to Russell Square in Dhanmondi where it terminated at 6:45pm.
The procession paraded through Noor Hossain Square, Paltan intersection, Bijoy Nagar Road, Kakrail, Matsya Bhaban, Shahbagh intersection, Elephant Road, Science Laboratory intersection and Kala-bagan before reaching the square.
The AL chief, on an open jeep, waved to people lining both sides of the streets and many waved back.
The procession paralysed the city traffic, leaving all sorts of vehicles stranded in clogged streets.
Additional law-enforcers were deployed at different points to keep peace during the demonstration.