Two killed as opposition strike kicks off in Bangladesh

Dhaka: Two people were killed as gunfights and explosions marked the start of another 60-hour opposition strike amid an intensified deadlock over the upcoming general elections due in January.

The first casualty of the violence was reported from northwestern Lalmonirhat where police intervened as clashes eruoted between activists of main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and ruling Awami League.

Local reporters identified the victim as a BNP activist and said at least 25 people including policemen were injured. The second victim was a factory worker who succumbed to his wounds after strikers hurled bricks at a truck carrying labourers in Natore, also a northwestern district reaching the toll in the past eight days of political violence to 20.

Paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) troops were called out to enforce a tight security vigil in the capital, major cities and strongholds of BNP and its fundamentalist ally Jamaat-e-Islami.

Elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) forces joined riot police in patrolling while the hartal forced suspension of nationwide secondary and higher secondary public examinations and kept most private cars off the road and big shopping malls shuttered.

The opposition enforced the strike defying a government request to postpone the protest to allow students to appear in the crucial examinations and accept the offer for dialogue to devise ways to settle dispute over the electoral system.

BNP, meanwhile, said it was ready for a unconditional dialogue at any time on amending the constitution while the prime minister insisted formation of an “all-party” government for the election oversight.

But in an apparent reversal from their earlier stance, Awami League general secretary and local government minister Syed Ashraful Islam late on Sunday said no dialogue could be held unless the opposition postponed their strike.

BNP sharply criticised the government for imposing the “precondition of hartal withdrawal” for talks with its acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Monday saying “this cannot be a condition for dialogue… Consensus would not be possible under conditions”.

The election commissioner, meanwhile, said it planned to announce a schedule for the parliament elections without fixing a definite date as it preferred to wait for the “maximum possible time” allowing the two major parties to settle their disputes over the electoral system.

“But the polls will have to be conducted within January 24, so not much time is available,” chief election commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin told newsmen on Sunday.

Speaking at a party rally late on Sunday Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also reiterated her earlier pledge to stage the polls within the constitutional deadline and asked her archrival BNP chief join talks calling off the strike.

“The election will be held in due time. God willing, the people will give us the chance to serve them by voting for the ‘boat’,” she told the rally.

Political sources said despite the deadlock the government was preparing for the elections. Suranjit Sengupta, a minister without portfolio, on Sunday said the cabinet will tender resignation “very soon” to allow formation of an all party interim government in line with the premier’s proposal.