Clashes erupted and transport and business was disrupted in Bangladesh yesterday after the main opposition party called a second strike in three days to protest at what it said was "barbaric" police action in the first strike.
The Awami League, the country's biggest opposition party, said in a statement nearly 100 of its members and supporters, including several senior leaders, were injured in the latest country-wide strike.
Witnesses said clashes erupted yesterday, a working day in Bangladesh, when baton-wielding police turned on stone-throwing protesters.
PHOTO: AFP
"The on-and-off-again battle is mostly concentrated around the Awami League central office at Gulistan, in the heart of the city," one witness said. Others said protesters had exploded some home-made bombs but no one was injured.
The strike was in protest against police action on Thursday, when the Awami League called a strike to mobilize support for its campaign to topple Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and force early elections, which are otherwise not due before October 2006.
Awami League general secretary Abdul Jalil said "hundreds of our party leaders, including a former minister, and supporters were wounded in barbaric police actions during Thursday's strike."
The former minister, Saber Hossain Chowdhury, and several others were still in hospital, party leaders said yesterday.
In the capital Dhaka, hundreds of opposition activists took to the streets under the watchful eyes of hundreds of police and paramilitary troops, witnesses said.
The strike had affected Chittagong port and major towns across the country, reporters said. Most shops remained closed and schools suspended examinations. The Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges also remained shut.
On Friday night, suspected opposition supporters set fire to a bus and damaged four other vehicles in Dhaka, police said. No one was injured.
Awami chief Sheikh Hasina said while visiting the wounded in hospitals on Friday that the government had pushed the country "into unprecedented lawlessness, making killings, lootings and abductions rampant."
She urged the people to push Prime Minister Khaleda's more than two-year-old government out and make way for early elections.
Khaleda's Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) is expected to hold a rally in the capital later yesterday.
Khaleda has rejected calls for early polls, saying the country is making satisfactory progress on the economic and social fronts.
"The Awami League has a history of doing bad things and trying to retard progress and disrupt peace," BNP secretary-general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan said on Friday.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS