Opposition announces 3-day blockade in Bangladesh from Tuesday

After a daylong hartal on Sunday, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its alliances have announced countrywide blockades for three consecutive days starting on October 31 (Tuesday).

BNP’s Senior leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi came up with the announcement of the fresh programme at a virtual press briefing on Sunday night. He said the blockades will be observed on October 31, November 1, and 2 across Bangladesh to register BNP’s protest against the attack on its Nayapaltan grand rally, and arrest of over 1,000 opposition leaders and activists of different parties.

The opposition’s tougher stand is to press home their one-point demand and to protest the alleged attacks on the party’s Nayapaltan grand rally on Saturday. The BNP is pressing for the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government and handing over power to a non-partisan government to hold the next general election which is due in January 2024.

A Dhaka metropolitan magistrate on Sunday sent BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir to jail in a case filed over vandalizing Chief Justice Obaidul Hassan’s residence during his party’s grand rally on Saturday after rejecting his bail petition. He was detained by the Detective Branch (DB) of Police from his Gulshan residence on Sunday Morning.

Meanwhile, police filed 6 cases against 1300 BNP leaders and activists on various charges, including bomb explosion, attacking police, and snatching firearms from law enforcers during the party’s grand rally with Shahjahanpur Police Station in Dhaka on Saturday, reports UNB.

In another development, at least seven foreign missions in Bangladesh have issued a statement calling on all stakeholders to exercise restraint, refrain from violence, and work together to create the conditions for free, fair, participatory, and peaceful elections. The joint statement signed by Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, Norway, the UK, and the US was posted on social media platform X on Monday.