Hartal in capital, 11 districts tomorrow

This Star photo shows only a handful of three-wheelers ply a thoroughfare in Gazipur on December 28 last year during a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the city called by 20-party alliance.

The BNP-led 20-party alliance has called a 24-hour hartal in the capital from 6:00am tomorrow and a dawn-to-dusk shutdown in 11 districts including Dhaka protesting cases against BNP chief Khaleda Zia and remand of the party’s acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

The call for hartal in the capital came shortly after announcement of shutdown in the nine districts that did not have the city in its purview.

Fazlul Haque Milon, an organising secretary of BNP, in a press release this evening said they will enforce a 24-hour hartal in the capital city of Dhaka from 6:00am tomorrow. 

Earlier in the afternoon, the BNP leader in another press release said the shutdown will be enforced from 6:00am tomorrow in Dhaka, Gazipur, Tangail, Manikganj, Munshiganj, Narayanganj, Narsingdi, Kishoreganj and Mymensingh.

He said the alliance will enforce the hartal on top of its ongoing countrywide nonstop blockade.

While the local units of the BNP-led alliance called for dawn-to-dusk hartal in Natore and Feni districts for tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Islami, a component of the opposition alliance, today announced 36-hour hartal in Rajshahi district from Saturday protesting killing of Nurul Kabir Shahin, a college teacher and local leader of the party, in a “shootout” with police early Wednesday.

Khaleda and 31 other BNP-Jamaat leaders were sued on Sunday night for setting fire to a covered van in Chauddagram upazila of Comilla.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Corruption Commission has moved to revive the seven-year-old Global Agro Trade (Pvt) Co Ltd (Gatco) corruption case against the BNP chief. 

A court yesterday for the first time placed Fakhrul on a three-day remand in a case filed for torching a vehicle of the public administration ministry on December 28 last year.