CPB calls off May 2 hartal

The Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) yesterday withdrew its May 2 countrywide hartal after the BNP-led opposition declared a shutdown for the same day.
However, two other left-leaning parties, Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal (BSD) and Gonotantrik Bam Morcha, that had jointly called the hartal said they would observe it.
The CPB will hold protest rallies across the country on April 29, April 30 and May 3, party sources said.
It was indecent of the BNP-Jamaat-led alliance that it had decided to enforce a hartal on May 2 even though it had been well aware of the programme set by the leftists, the CPB said in a press release.
The CPB, BSD and Bam Morcha at a press conference Saturday morning announced the hartal to press home their 10-point demand, including arrest and exemplary punishment of those responsible for the deaths in the Savar building collapse.
The BNP-led 18-party alliance that night came up with the decision to enforce a daylong hartal on the same day, in protest at the "killing of garment workers and the government's failure and inadequate action in rescuing the Savar victims."
The opposition said its decision to observe the May 2 hartal would not change.
The 18-party alliance called its programme to protect the anti-liberation war force Jamaat, the press release says.
"In the past they [BNP-Jamaat] did not observe any programme for the inferno at Tazreen Fashions, collapse of Spectrum Garments and such incidents in other garments,” CPB President Mujahidul Islam Selim said in the statement.
The left parties' demands also include a quick trial of war crimes at the international crimes tribunals and a ban on Jamaat-Shibir politics.