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60-hr hartal starts today

18 vehicles torched; JSC exams deferred

Staff Correspondent
The BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance will enforce another 60-hour countrywide hartal from 6:00am today, forcing the education ministry to defer the junior school and Dakhil exams for today and Wednesday.
FROM PAGE I
This will be the opposition's second long hartal in a span of seven days demanding formation of a non-party caretaker government for holding the next general polls in a free, fair and neutral manner.
Around 20 lakh Junior School Certificate (JSC) and Junior Dakhil Certificate (JDC) examinees were set to take their exams from today. But the ministry yesterday announced that today's exams will now be held on Friday, while Wednesday's exams on Saturday.
The education ministry waited till midday yesterday hoping that the opposition might postpone its November 4-6 hartal coinciding with exams. Around 1:00pm, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid at a press conference at his ministry announced the revised exam schedules.
"Considering the safety of our children, we have decided to defer the exam dates. We can't be irresponsible like the opposition," he mentioned.
Apart from students, country's top business leaders also became disheartened at the opposition's firm stance on the hartal. They said the country's economy will suffer a major setback due to the shutdown, not to mention the common people's plight.
Members of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) patrolled some major city streets from 7:00pm yesterday to maintain law and order.
PRE-HARTAL VIOLENCE
In the capital yesterday, residents suffered a bad start to the week due to some stray incidents of pre-hartal violence.
BNP-Jamaat men torched at least 18 vehicles, including buses and cars, in Dhaka and Gazipur, said fire service officials.
Opposition activists also blasted crude
bombs at different parts of the city.
Two people, including a suspected bomb carrier, were injured in cocktail blasts at Katabon and Malibagh. Over 50 crude bombs were blasted elsewhere in the capital to create panic among city residents ahead of the hartal.
Shahbag police said Anwar Hossain, 30, was carrying a crude bomb in his pocket. It blasted around 11:00am when he was taking tea at a tea stall at Katabon.
Anwar sustained severe injuries as bomb splinters struck his thighs and abdomen. Police whisked him to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH).
Talking to this correspondent at the hospital, Anwar's mother Parvin Begum said her son is a street vendor.
Rickshawpuller Abdul Motalib, 35, was injured as a homemade bomb exploded near the Padma cinema at Malibagh around 3:00pm.
Motalib sustained injuries to the head and throat and was undergoing treatment at DMCH.
Around 9:00am, Jamaat-Shibir men brought out a brisk procession at Shahjadpur. They blasted four cocktails in the area, said Gulshan police.
On information, law enforcers went to the spot and fired 11 shots to disperse the pro-hartal men.
The last countrywide 60-hour hartal (October 27-29) had claimed 14 lives, raising the number of deaths to 259 so far in 2013 from political violence, according to statistics of The Daily Star.
Besides, miscreants attacked 19 newsmen before and during that hartal across the country. They also exploded crude bombs in front of at least four media houses in the capital. BUSINESSES WORRIED - Bl