Sporadic clashes mark hartal
Sporadic clashes between hartal supporters and policemen across the country marked yesterday's dawn-to-dusk shutdown enforced by the BNP-led 20-party alliance.
Except for a few incidents of picketing and processions by local leaders, no top or mid-level BNP leaders were seen on roads for demonstration in support of the hartal.
The presence of activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a strong ally of the opposition, was also very thin on the streets in Dhaka city.
At Sabujbagh in the capital, the police opened fire on hartal supporters around 11:30am after they hurled crude bombs at law enforcers leaving one police constable injured, said an officer of Sabujbagh Police Station.
A youth, Jony, was injured in his left knee in the police firing. The 23-year old, who claimed that he was not involved in politics, was admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
The pickets in Sabujbagh also vandalised at least three vehicles, the police officer said seeking anonymity.
Over a hundred members of police, Rapid Action Battalion, Armed Police Battalion, and Detective Branch were on guard around the BNP's Naya Paltan office since morning. They allowed only a few party leaders to enter the office.
The BNP-led opposition combine enforced the 12-hour hartal, first of its kind since the January 5 election, to protest the restoration of parliament's authority to remove Supreme Court judges for misbehaviour or incapability.
Pro-BNP-Jamaat lawyers boycotted the Supreme Court as part of the countrywide protest programme demanding cancellation of the latest constitutional amendment.
They locked the gates of the Supreme Court Bar Association building and held a rally in front of the office.
Life in Dhaka, specially students' education, was disrupted because of the hartal as parents did not send their children to schools and colleges fearing for their safety.
Day labourers and many other low-income groups found it hard to earn their livelihood.
Road communications between Dhaka and the rest of the country were cut off as no long-distance vehicles hit the roads yesterday. However, train communications were as usual, said officials of Kamalapur Railway Station.
In Chittagong city, police baton charged pickets when they tried to put barricades on the road in front of Nasimon Bhaban.
BNP-Jamaat men blocked the Chandpur-Comilla highway for several hours by laying logs at Kumardugi.
Law enforcers detained over 50 BNP and 25 Jamaat activists in different parts of the country for their suspicious movement or involvement in subversive activities or attack on police, reports our Chittagong, Chandpur, Jhenidah, Satkhira and Gazipur correspondents.
BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir at a post-hartal press conference at the party's Naya Paltan office said 283 party men were detained during the hartal hours while some 32 others injured in police attacks across the country.
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