BNP calls countrywide shutdown for Monday
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance has called a dawn-to-dusk shutdown across the country for Monday in protest against the government’s not allowing the party chairperson Khaleda Zia to hold a rally in Gazipur on Saturday. BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir announced the programme at a news conference at Khaleda Zia’s office in Gulshan on Saturday afternoon. Earlier, senior leaders of the BNP-led alliance held a meeting at the office. Khaleda Zia was scheduled to address a rally on Gazipur’s Bhwal Badre Alam Government College ground that was postponed after the local administration imposed section 144 and a ban on political gatherings in Gazipur after the ruling party-backed student organisation Bangladesh Chhatra League threatened to thwart the BNP’s rally.
Fakhrul said the government imposed section 144 in Gazipur not to allow Khaleda Zia to hold her scheduled rally on Saturday. ‘It’s today [Saturday] in Gazipur, but the police have obstructed our programme… BNP leaders and activists have been arrested across the country’, he said, adding, ‘We are announcing a dawn-to-dusk hartal for Monday in protest against [the government’s] not allowing Khaleda Zia to hold the rally in Gazipur and other repressive actions of the government.’ The dawn-to-dusk strike enforced by the BNP-led alliance in Gazipur on Saturday was marked by stray incidents. BNP’s Gazipur district unit president and central organising secretary Fazlul Haque Milon had announced the programmes at a press conference at Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan office after she held a meeting with senior leaders on Friday. BNP staged demonstrations in all divisional cities and district towns on Saturday to register protest at the ban on political rallies in Gazipur.
Large contingents of police backed by Rapid Action Battalion and Border Guard Bangladesh forces were deployed all over Gazipur district to fend off any trouble. No major picketing by the party activists was seen in the town since the strike began in the morning. Gazipur deputy commissioner Nurul Islam said security had been tightened to avert troubles in the district. He said some 10-15 pickets had tried to block Dhaka-Mymensingh highway at Sripur point Saturday morning but they fled after the police arrived. The district police superintendent, Harunur Rashid, said the situation was under control. Traffic was thinner than usual in Gazipur city while shops remained closed during the hartal. No long route buses operated on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway. No senior BNP leaders, not even its district unit president Fazlul Haque Milon, who announced the Gazipur shutdown, was seen on the streets. BNP activists tried to obstruct traffic hurling stones in Tongi Bara Bari area and Siripur in the morning, but police dispersed them. Awami League activists staged a rally against the hartal in Tongi area.
On Friday, the local administration in Gazipur imposed section 144 on the rally venue while the police slapped a ban on all kinds of political activities across the district after Chhatra League said it would not let BNP to hold its planned rally and occupied the venue on Bhawal Badre Alam College ground. Earlier Mirza Fakhrul at a press conference at Gulshan had said that the rally would be held at ‘any cost’ in Gazipur.
- See more at: http://newagebd.net/80813/bnp-calls-countrywide-shutdown-for-monday/#sthash.0ZjiJnsU.oGMQmifa.dpuf
