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Cops seal off Hawa Bhaban area, AL HQ

Agitators fight pitched battle with police, 200 picked

Staff Correspondent
Police yesterday sealed Gulistan. Bangabandltu Avenue and Banani areas off to traffic and opposition activists to scuttle their high-profile move to besiege Hawa Bhaban and clubbed scores of anti-government demonstrators wherever they gathered, lcavingatleast40 wounded.
Law-enforcers clubbed and tear-gassed opposition activists who gathered at Paltan Maidan -- the
rescheduled venue for assembly of the die opposition activists after Bangabandhu Avenue was sealed off - in their abortive bid to lay siege to Hawa Bhaban. office of ruling BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and allegedly the alternative power centre, in Banani.
Front organisations of the Awami League (AL) enforced the programme for-what they said was to put a stop to Hawa'Bhaban, which ' is the centre of unbridled corrup-
tion and ill practices'.
Police clamped down a virtual curfew in the one square kilometres area around Hawa Bhaban and prevented leaders and activists of main opposition AL and its front organisations from laying the siege. They also barred workers of Jatiya Sarnajtantrik Dal (JSD-Inu) from marching towards the Prime Minister's Office, scheduled for yesterday afternoon.
People's movement was also
restricted on Bangabandhu Avenue, at Zero Point in Gulistan and in Banani from early morning, confining residents indoors and grinding business operations in the area to a halt, much to the inconvenience of the office-and school-gocrs.
As the leaders and workers ofthe AL and its front organisations started converging on Paltan Maidan, riot and plainclothes police charged batons and fired tear-gas
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residences of AL presidium members Tofail Ahmed, Sajeda Chowdhury, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim and Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, Dhaka city unit AL President and former Dhaka mayor Mohammad Hanif, city AL General Secretary Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya and AL lawmaker Sheikh Helal Uddin.
Mir Ashraf Ali, an assistant commissioner (AC) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, who led the series of raids, told The Daily Star yesterday that the raids were conducted upon receipt of a court order to search those houses.
Police did not find any illegal weapons or unauthorised persons during the raid at the AL leaders' houses.
Terming the incident unfortunate, Tofail Ahmed told this correspondent that this was the fifth time since the 2001 general elections that police raided his house. "I would not blame the police. They just carried out the orders but I feel sorry for the attitude of a political government."
He said policemen did show him a search warrant and scoured all the rooms of his two-storey Gulshan residence from 2:30am to 3:30am.
AL presidium member and former minister Sajeda Chowdhury said a huge contingent of police raided her Gulshan residence at about 3:00am and conducted an hour-long search.
"They came with ropes and handcuffs, went upstairs and searched all the rooms, but found nothing (illegal)," she said.
Deploring the incident, she said: "What a country we live in! Is this a
democracy? People cannot even sleep at night."
Reply to a question, Sajeda Chowdhury said: "On demand, the police officer produced a search warrant to look for explosives or illegal weapons in my house and left empty-handed after an hour. Does it look like I could possess explosives or illegal weapons? It's nothing but sheer political harassment."
Police also raided the Banani house of another AL presidium member and former minister Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim MP at about 2:00am.
Selim said police searched every single room for about 30 minutes and wanted to know the identity of everyone in the house, but found nothing objectionable.
He said: "As they were leaving, I told the police officer it was not the right thing to do at this hour of night without a specific charge. How can police search the house of a parliament member without any specific allegation?"
Condemning the police action, Selim said: "We're worried about my mother, who is 86 and ill. She had witnessed the massacre of August 15 (in 1975) and witnessed the murder of my brother (Sheikh Moni), my sister-in-law and others. Now the mere sight of police frightens her."
"Is this called democracy? They don't have a minimum sense of democratic norms."
The houses of Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir and Mohammad Hanif were also searched at 3:00am and 1:30am, the AL leaders told this correspondent.