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Hartal Peaceful

Cops, mobile courts active 200 arrested

Staff Correspondent
Yesterday's 11-hour hartal called by BNP and its allies was relatively peaceful with no major incidents of violence.
Police virtually cordoned off the BNP central office at Naya Paltan since the morning while nobody was found in Jamaat-e-Islami central office in the capital. They also prevented opposition supporters from bringing out processions or demonstrating against the government.
Presence of opposition men on the streets was very thin yesterday while ruling Awami League and its associated bodies brought out anti-hartal processions in the capital
Mobile courts sentenced five people to jail in the city and fined them too on different terms in connection with “trying to create anarchy”, police said, adding that 20 others were also arrested yesterday in the capital. Police headquarters sources said around 200 people were arrested nationwide.
Schools and businesses remained closed countrywide during the hartal called to protest the recent hike in fuel prices, the share market scam and repression on
opposition activists.
However, BNP thanked people for “observing the hartal spontaneously” and announced further nationwide demonstration programmes for Saturday to protest arrests and attacks on opposition supporters in connection with observing yesterday's hartal.
At a press briefing in the BNP central office, party acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir claimed that cadres of the ruling Awami League killed BNP leader Farid Joarder, also a schoolteacher, at Gournadi ofBarisal yesterday.
He claimed that at least 500 BNP activists, including 130 in the capital, were arrested and 450 workers were injured since Tuesday.
Transport to and from Dhaka was almost suspended
but some buses ran on city streets. Train and launch services were, however, normal.
Rickshaws dominated the capital yesterday even though compared to other hartals there were more vehicles on the streets. A large number of people were seen going to work in the morning.
The law enforcers resisted hartal supporters whenever they tried to bring out any procession or stage demonstrations. In front of the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban, law enforcers obstructed a procession brought out by BNP lawmakers in the morning. BNP activists brought out another procession on Green Road which also faced police resistance.
Jamaat-e-Islami, a key component of the four-party alliance, tried to bring out a
procession in Motijheel area around 10:30am but police failed it and picked up two Jamaatmen.
Our Barisai correspondent reports: Police picked up five people in Barisai from a procession. Most pickets made a run for it when police reached the spot. The pickets had set fire to tyres on different streets of the city.
Police also arrested 20 people in Khulna, Sylhet and Bogra during the hartal period.
Around 12 mobile courts, 11,000 additional policemen and 3,000 Rab personnel were deployed at strategic points in the capital todealwithpickets.
On Sunday, the government raised prices of diesel, kerosene, petrol and octane by Tk 5 a litre, and furnace oil by Tk 8, with effect from
Sunday midnight. The price of compressed natural gas (CNG) was also raised a day later by Tk 5 per unit with effect from Monday midnight. BNP and its allies declared a 12- hour hartal for yesterday on Tuesday protesting this but they reduced it by an hour mentioning “unavoidable circumstances".
Sources, however, said the hartal was shortened due to a cultural programme of a Pakistani singer and a reception party attheSaudi Embassy.
The BNP and its allies had called for hartals on July 6, 7 and 8 demanding reinstatement of the caretaker government system. Their first general strike programme was on June27,2010, after the present government assumed power in January, 2009.