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Non-stop blockade looms

BNP mulls harsher programme from next week; Khoka detained; Rizvi sent to jail

Staff Correspondent
The BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance might enforce an indefinite blockade of roads, rail and waterways from Saturday or Sunday if the government does not give in to its demand for a non-party polls-time government.
BNP spokesperson
Salahuddin Ahmed yesterday issued an ultimatum to the government to meet the opposition demand by 5:00pm today, or else the opposition would announce tougher agitation programmes. Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad's decision to back out from the electoral race has boosted the morale of the opposition camp. The BNP now thinks that it is the proper time to make a final push to thwart the government's move for a one-sided national election.
"This is the right time to hit the iron," a BNP leader,
who has been hiding to avoid arrest, told The Daily Star over the phone.
Meanwhile, detectives and Rab members last night picked up BNP Vice-president Sadeque Hossain Khoka from a house at Sector-4 in the capital's Uttara, a close aide to Khoka told this newspaper.
In a video message sent from an undisclosed location to the media, Salahuddin said, "We'll be forced to announce tougher programmes if the government fails to make a proper response to our demand."
"We want to tell the prime minister [Sheikh Hasina] that there is still time. Postpone the schedule for a one-sided election. Shun the path of confrontation for the welfare of the country," he added.
Talking to this newspaper, a midlevel BNP leader close to its acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said it is certain that the
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opposition combine would announce either a blockade or a non-cooperation programme after the ongoing 131-hour blockade ends at 5:00pm today.
The fresh programme might be enforced from Saturday or Sunday depending on the latest situation, he added.
Jatiya Party chief Ershad on Tuesday said his party would not take part in the January 5 polls as the atmosphere for an inclusive election is absent. RIZVI SENT TO JAIL
A Dhaka court yesterday rejected the bail and remand pleas for BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed and sent him to jail in an arson case.
Metropolitan Magistrate MA Salam, however, granted permission to MA Jalil, officer-in-charge of Shahbagh Police Station, and also the investigation officer in the case, to interrogate the BNP leader at the jail gate for 10 days.
Shahbagh police filed the case over the instigating and masterminding of an arson attack on a bus that burned 19 people in the capital's Shahbagh on November 28.
Detectives arrested Rizvi on November 30 at the Nayapaltan headquarters of the BNP.
Three of the burn victims succumbed to their injuries at Dhaka Medical College Hospital till yesterday.
Among the other accused in the case are BNP leaders Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Sadeque Hossain Khoka, Mirza Abbas, Amanullah Aman, Barkatullah Bulu and Goyeswar Chandra Roy.