Blockade begins as crackdown on BNP continues
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from the district.
Earlier, the opposition parties observed a day-long hartal on October 29 and a three-day blockade from October 31 to November 2 to press home their one-point demand and protest the police action on its October 28 rally.
At least three people died in clashes and arson attacks during the day of the hartal. The three-day countrywide blockade was also marked by clashes that left four people dead.
Fear of violence among the public runs high, as there were reports of torching 31 vehicles in the capital and elsewhere in the county during last week’s blockade.
Last night, six buses were torched in Dhaka’s New Market, Elephant Road, Sayedabad, and Gulistan; Narayanganj’s Siddhirganj; and Bhola’s Charfesson.
Khandaker Enayet Ullah, general secretary of the Dhaka Road Transport Owners’ Association, told this newspaper that buses would operate today.
ARRESTS CONTINUE
BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said over 5,023 party leaders and activists were arrested in 113 cases across the country from October 24 till yesterday afternoon.
Some 176 were picked up, and 575 BNP men were sued in six cases in the 24 hours till yesterday afternoon, Rizvi told a virtual press briefing.
Plainclothes men allegedly detained BNP Organising Secretary Syed Emran Saleh Prince from his sister’s house in Badda yesterday evening, according to the BNP media cell.
Meanwhile, the DB yesterday said it arrested three BNP leaders, including Al Masud, agriculture affairs secretary of Jubo Dal’s central committee.
While talking to reporters at his office, DB chief Harun Or Rashid claimed that the arrestees detonated bombs at different places on October 27.
Besides, they hurled bombs targeting police at different places on October 28, he added.
The Rab yesterday said it arrested 23 BNP men in several districts for violence, vandalism, and arson.
According to court sources, at least 78 BNP-Jamaat men were produced before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Dhaka yesterday.
‘TARGET FOR WIPEOUT’
Rizvi alleged that law enforcers were targeting even grassroots leaders and activists across the country to eliminate the party.
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Alamgir, standing committee members Mirza Abbas and Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, Joint Secretary General Syed Moazzem Hossain Alal, party media cell Convenor Zahir Uddin Swapan, and Dhaka North City Unit Member Secretary Aminul Haque are among the party leaders arrested over the last week.
In a statement yesterday, Abdul Moyeen Khan, a standing committee member of the party, denounced “the ruling party’s oppression”.
“Those who think that the BNP will be leaderless and wiped out by a reign of terror created by the government’s administrative machinery and misinformation in the media must remember that the BNP’s foundation is at the grassroots.”