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Zainul Abdin hurt, 21 held in city
Opposition Chief Whip Zainul Abdin Farooque and two policemen were injured in separate clashes between the pro-hartal political activists and law enforcers as the 48-hour opposition-sponsored shutdown began Wednesday.
Police picked up eight activists of Jamaat-e-Islami after a clash in Mirpur in the morning. In Mohakhali, Noor-e-Ara Safa, a former lawmaker and president of the Gulshan unit of Jatiyatabadi Mohila Dal, and five activists of the party were picked up.
No long-distance bus left or arrived in Dhaka. A few passenger buses, mostly of the BRTC, plied on the city streets. Commuters have to depend largely on CNG-run auto-rickshaws and rickshaws.
Commuter trains left the Kamalapur Railway Station in due time, said officials.
Law enforcers were out in the streets early morning much before the hartal convenors and appeared firm not to let the pro-hartal pickets gather anywhere in the capital.......
Ashraful Azim, an officer of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, confirmed that police picked up Noor-e-Ara Safa along with her party activists there.
At Naya Paltan area, police picked up seven people around the noon.
The detainees, however, claimed to be pedestrians.
Talking to reporters at Naya Paltan, BNP Joint Secretary General Nazrul Islam Khan said the government not only cordoned off the BNP office but also the democracy.
He condemned the police attack on Zainul Abdin Farooque.
In Chittagong, police picked up 12 BNP activists from different parts of the city during the hartal.
Of the detainees, four were arrested with two cocktails and two containers of patrol from Agrabad area of the port city.
Police barred a BNP rally in Kazir Dewri area at around 10:00pm. They picked up five activists from the spot.
Three more BNP activists were picked up from Nimtola area when they were preparing to hold a rally in support of the hartal.
In Naryanganj, 15 people, including a cameraperson of a private TV channel, were injured when police charged batons on pro-hartal activists in Rupganj upazila.
Our Noakhali correspondent reported that 11 Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal and Jubo Dal activists were injured when they clashed with police. Police picked up at least 26 BNP men in nine upazilas of the district.
In Narsingdi, 10 hartal activists were injured when police charged batons on a procession in the morning.
In Bogra, a mobile court sent a woman activist of BNP to jail for 15 days on charge of vandalising a vehicle in the afternoon.
In Chandpur, 20 people including eight policemen were injured in a clash between police and pickets in Haimchar upazila.
Our correspondent in Natore reported that pickets vandalised 10 vehicles including three buses and seven goods-laden trucks at different places in the district town.
BNP and its allies including the Jamaat-e-Islami enforced the 48-hour shutdown from 6:00am Wednesday in protest against scrapping of the caretaker government system and hurting the religious sentiment of the people through the 15th amendment to the constitution.
The hartal has put the nation virtually on a six-day holiday as an alliance of 12 parties led by Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish will enforce a 30-hour shutdown from Sunday after two weekly holidays on Friday and Saturday.
Zainul Abdin hurt, 21 held in city
Is it Opposition Chief Whip who is without his clothes in the picture?
It will be noticed that when I said this long hartal is a holiday, it was not taken well. Well, here is a BD Daily which too shares my view, which I had mentioned way earlier.
That apart it appears that the Govt meant business and had got their police to do their homework so that the situation is kept under control.
But, likewise, the Opposition too was ready to give the Govt a hard time, which apparently they have succeeded in doing.
But what one must not forget is the economic damage these strikes do to a country as was mentioned in the eidtorial of this paper and also by the President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers.
In fact the President of the Garment Manufacturer raised a very pertinent point in that these strikes will create slippages in meeting the foreign export demands and there was every possibility that the foreign importers would seek other foreign sources than Bangladesh to meet their schedules.
