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| Sunday, 15 February 2004 |
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Bangladesh hit by second opposition strike DHAKA, Feb 14 (Reuters) Transport and business was disrupted across Bangladesh on Saturday after the main opposition party called a second strike in three days to protest against what it said was "barbaric" police action in the first strike. The Awami League, the country's biggest opposition party, called a strike on Thursday to mobilise support for its campaign to topple Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and force early elections, which are otherwise not due before October 2006. The country-wide strike on Saturday, a working day in Bangladesh, was in protest against police action on Thursday. Awami League general secretary Abdul Jalil said "hundreds of our party leaders, including a former minister, and supporters were wounded in barbaric police actions during Thursday's strike". The former minister, Saber Hossain Chowdhury, and several others were still in hospital, party leaders said on Saturday. In the capital Dhaka, opposition activists took to the streets under the watchful eyes of hundreds of police and paramilitary troops, witnesses said. The strike affected Chittagong port and major towns across the country, reporters said. On Friday night, suspected opposition supporters set fire to a bus and damaged four other vehicles in Dhaka, police said. No one was injured. Awami chief Sheikh Hasina said while visiting the wounded in hospitals on Friday that the government had pushed the country "into unprecedented lawlessness, making killings, lootings and abductions rampant". She urged the people to push Prime Minister Khaleda's more than two-year-old government out and make way for early elections. Khaleda's Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) is expected to hold a rally in the capital later on Satruday. |
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