Classes and transportation in Bangladesh were seriously disrupted yesterday as ousted former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her former ruling Awami League party called for a nationwide “lockdown” in protest against her trial over last year’s protests that left hundreds dead.
Hasina faces charges of crimes against humanity involving a crackdown on the student-led uprising that ended her 15-year rule in August last year. She has been in exile in India since then and has not been seen in public or online.
A special tribunal in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, is expected to announce a verdict against Hasina on Monday, chief prosecutor Tajul Islam said at a news conference yesterday.
Photo: EPA
Hasina’s now-banned Awami League urged its supporters and others to protest, while the government and opposition to Hasina vowed to stop them.
Schools in Dhaka and major cities across Bangladesh switched to online classes and examinations, while public transportation was severely disrupted yesterday as the government increased its security measures across the country.
Dhaka has had incidents of vandalism this week as usually clogged streets remained mostly empty yesterday.
A fire bomb was thrown at a government office in Gopalganj District, which is Hasina’s ancestral home and a stronghold for her party.
An office of Grameen Bank, a small loan institution founded by Bangladesh’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, was torched on Wednesday in eastern Bangladesh, local media reported.
Yunus in a televised address yesterday said that his administration would hold a referendum on a national charter, which was signed last month by political parties, on the day of the next election in February.
The date has not yet been announced.
Yunus said that the referendum would propose a bicameral parliament in line with the “July National Charter” adopted by the interim government that he took over three days after Hasina’s fall on Aug. 5 last year.
Yunus also repeated his pledge to punish Hasina.
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