Over 7000 arrested during blockade

The government on Wednesday disclosed that a total 7,015 people, most of them activists of Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami, have been so far arrested in connection with violence across the country during the ongoing blockade. ‘We are satisfied with the improvement in the overall law and order situation. The traffic movement in cities and highways have become normal,’ industries minister Amir Hossain Amu told a press briefing after presiding over a special meeting of the cabinet committee on law and order at the secretariat. He said that 7,015 people, mostly activists of BNP and Jamaat-Shibir, were arrested in the last 15 days in connection with arson attacks and vandalism during the rail-road-waterways blockade called by BNP-led opposition alliance on January 5. At least 125 BNP activists, 27 of Jamaat-Shibir and two others were arrested in Dhaka city alone. Amu, also senior leader of ruling Awami League, said the cabinet committee had expressed concern about the ‘ultimate fate of politics’ in Bangladesh in the wake of violence during a political programme. The cabinet committee chief criticised the role of media for focusing more on ‘stray incidents of violence’ although the law and order situation, he claimed, was largely normal and communications between Dhaka and other districts was ‘as usual’.  ‘The media is creating panic among people,’ he added. Amu announced a bounty of Tk one lakh for anyone who will help with information to nab those behind arson attacks on vehicles and other acts of violence during the blockade. The cabinet committee ordered field administrations to reconstitute district and upazila level law and order committees to tackle the situation more effectively, he mentioned. Commerce minister Tofail Ahmed, information minister Hasanul Haq Inu, shipping minister Shajahan Khan, water resources minister Anisul Islam Mahmud, state minister for home affairs Asaduzzaman Khan, and state minister for labour Md Mujibul Haque and heads of all law enforcement agencies attended the crucial meeting. Police informed the meeting that they had already prepared a list of persons behind the hit-and-run attacks and bombings in the city and drives were on to nab them. At least 29 lives were lost across the country in violence since BNP called nonstop nationwide blockade on January 5 in protest against the government preventing former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s scheduled rally in the capital to mark the January 5 election as ‘democracy killing day’. Three opposition activists have so far been killed in what police said incidents of ‘shootouts’ since January 16, when the operations by a joint force began to maintain order ‘at all costs’. The joint operations by police, Rapid Action Battalion and Border Guard Bangladesh targeted what they called ‘troublesome districts’ to check hit-and-run attacks by pickets after four passengers were killed in Rangpur and several others injured when a petrol bomb set ablaze the bus, carrying them, on January 14. Security along the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway has been further beefed up to facilitate uninterrupted shipment of exports and imports, said home ministry officials. The home ministry provided paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh troops, sought by 22 districts mostly in the north and Chittagong regions, to help maintain law and order during the blockade.

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