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Fed up, people now defy hartal

Star Report
Fed up with the long spells of shutdowns for the last three weeks, people yesterday defied the opposition-sponsored hartal and risked their lives coming out to the streets for daily work.
A large number of businesses, offices and roadside shops were seen open while a huge number of motorised vehicles plied the Dhaka streets yesterday, the second day of 84-hour hartal.
The scenario outside Dhaka was quite similar. A few stray incidents of clashes, vandalism, arson and explosions of crude
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bombs have been reported from different parts of the country.
The 18-party opposition alliance called the hartal to realise its prime demand of a non-party polls-time government and also in protest of arrests of its leaders.
In Dhaka, it did not look like a usual hartal day yesterday. Presence of pickets was also comparatively thin on the thoroughfares.
Apart from rickshaws dominating the roads, a significant number of minibuses and CNG-run auto-rickshaws were seen all through the day. Some areas even saw traffic congestion in the evening with a large number of private cars hitting the roads since the afternoon.
Long-route buses were, however, off the roads, but movement of trains, launches and planes remained quite normal.
"I could not bring goods for my shop from Bangshal for yesterday's [Sunday] hartal. But today [Monday] I have no choice but to take the risk," said Mamun Hossain, a trader from Mirpur.
"Do the politicians ever think what would happen to the commoners if they continue with destructive programmes like hartals? It is always the common people who have to bear the burnt," he said.
Rahim Mia, who runs a tea stall on Manik Mia Avenue, said: "I had to count losses as I could not open my shop during the last hartal days. I have a family of five and if I sit idle at home the family must go unfed."
Meanwhile, hartal supporters blasted crude bombs at different points of the capital. Pickets of Azimpur set fire to a human haulier by pouring petrol on it, leaving the helper of the vehicle injured.
A group of pickets vandalised and set alight
an auto-rickshaw at Kadamtola in Keraniganj around 8:00am. The fire injured the driver.
A pedestrian sustained splinter injury from a crude bomb blast at Laxmibazar in the capital while a man named Saddam Hossain Akash got himself injured while hurling a bomb in Paltan area, said police.
Employees of a garment buying house, a couple were injured when criminals blasted several crude bombs near the Maskat Plaza in Uttara around 8:00pm.
Locals whisked Afroza Akhtar Sumi, 28, and her husband Ahsan Ahmed, 35, to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said hospital sources.
Pro-hartal pickets torched six vehicles in and around the capital yesterday, according to fire service officials.
Law enforcers recovered 167 crude bombs, 240 crackers and one kilogram of gunpowder from a house in New Paltan area of Azimpur, Dhaka.
In Bogra, miscreants early yesterday uprooted a 10-foot stretch of railway tracks in Shahardighi area, two kilometres from Bogra railway station.
Two intercity trains had to delay in Bogra and Kahaloo stations until the tracks could be repaired.
In Tangail, at least 10 leaders and activists of BNP and its associate bodies were injured when activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League and Sramik League, pro-Awami League bodies, swooped on a gathering of BNP men in front of the district BNP office on Victoria Road.
I ncidents of vandalism and crude bomb explosion have also been reported from Chittagong, Sylhet Gazipur, Barisal, Rajshahi and Natore.
Police picked up two pickets with crude bombs at Chiringa area under Chakoria upazila at Cox's Bazar, four Shibir pickets in Satkhria, and two BNP activists in Jhenidah.