DHAKA, Oct 29, 2023 - Two activists of main opposition BNP and ruling Awami
League were killed in clashes, while a transport worker died in an arson
attack today as BNP enforced a countrywide general strike, prompting the
ruling party to call for "peace rallies" throughout the country.

According to police, a BNP activist was killed falling from an under
construction building in the city's Mohammadpur area as he tried to escape
"people's wrath" after setting on fire a bus.

The other death was reported from northwestern Lalmonirhat district with
police saying the Awami League activist was killed as clashes erupted during
rival parties' simultaneous demonstrations.

"Awami Sechhasebak League unit activist succumbed to his injuries as he was
rushed to the hospital," said regional police chief Abdul Baten.
Fire service and police said a bus driver's assistant was killed as
unidentified miscreants set fire to a static bus in a predawn attack in Demra
area on city outskirts while another transport worker was critically wounded.

A senior journalist Rafiq Bhuiyan, who was wounded during clashes between
police and opposition activists in Dhaka's Kakrail area on Saturday,
meanwhile, succumbed to his head injuries at a city hospital early today.

According to media reports and witnesses, several passenger buses were
damaged or set on fire in the city and elsewhere in the country throughout
the day.

The developments came a day after deadly clashes left two people including an
on duty policeman dead and over 200 wounded, several ambulances, other
vehicles including motorbikes entering into the frontal part of Rajarbagh
Central Police Hospital (CPH) and a police booth were burnt.

BNP claimed the other dead to be their supporter while his family said he was
simply a doctor's car driver having no political affiliation. Police said he
died at the CPH following heart failure being trapped in a clash spot in Naya
Paltan area.

Police, on early Sunday, arrested BNP secretary general or de facto party
chief Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir from his up market Gulshan residence,
heightening tensions in the country ahead of the general elections expected
in January.

"We have taken him (Alamgir) to our custody for subsequent legal actions," a
spokesman of Dhaka Metropolitan Police's (DMP) detective branch told
reporters.

Alamgir's wife Rahat Ara said the police initially visited their home, and
left with a hard disk containing CCTV camera footage from their house and
building and they later returned and took ailing Alamgir, 75, into custody.

BNP spokesman Zahir Uddin Swapan said police also made a series of raids on
the homes of senior party leaders and claimed nearly 3,000 party activists
and supporters had been detained in the past week.

Former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's BNP organised a grand rally in Dhaka on
Saturday demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to allow
free and fair elections under a non-party interim government. Hasina's Awami
League also held a peace rally in response to the opposition rally.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, meanwhile, said the opposition
vandalisms took place when BNP was staging their rally and therefore their
leaders could no way evade responsibilities.

"They (opposition activists) destroyed many (surveillance) cameras, yet many
CCTV footages are available and stern legal actions await those who would be
indentified for the attacks," he told reporters at his office.

BNP observed the countrywide strike on Sunday in response to the police
action that forced it to abruptly end its grand rally on Saturday, while the
Awami League asked party units to stage simultaneous peace rallies across the
country.

Traffic was relatively thin on the roads on Sunday morning while many shops
and businesses were shuttered in areas of possible spots of violence like
Naya Paltan, Purana Paltan, and Motijheel.

Riot police overnight besieged the BNP's central office while authorities
called out paramilitary troops ahead of the countrywide strike, a day after
violence gripped downtown Dhaka.

Witnesses said armed police equipped with riot cars and water cannons took
position around the empty main office of BNP, warning stern punitive actions
against security breaches "in the name of stoppage".

"A political party has called a strike. Police will take stern legal action
if someone disrupts peoples' free movement or tries to breach the security,"
DMP chief Habibur Rahman told a late-night media briefing.

Paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), meanwhile, said they deployed 11
platoons or over 300 troops to maintain law and order in the capital.

Mass circulated Prothom Alo newspaper said police arrested at least 900
leaders and activists of BNP and its far right ally Jamaat-e-Islami from
across the country in the past 24 hours.

The home minister, meanwhile, said many cases were lodged by now and many
more would be filed against people who tried to create anarchy.

The BNP is demanding the restoration of the election-time non-party caretaker
government system, under which four elections from 1991 to 2008 were held.

The December 2008 elections installed Hasina's Awami League, while the
subsequent 2014 and 2008 polls were held under the incumbent government,
which scrapped the constitutional provision after assuming office in January
2009.

Begum Zia, 79, who served as premier for two terms, is currently being
treated in a specialised private hospital with severe chronic ailments for
several weeks. Before being shifted to hospital, she was under house arrest
to serve a 17-year prison term on two graft charges.

Her elder son Tarique Rahman, a "fugitive convict" on several criminal
charges steers the party from London, where he is believed to have sought
asylum.

Major western nations, including the US, are calling for the Bangladesh polls
to be fair, credible and inclusive for the sake of democracy.

The European Union on Sunday said the EU and its member states in Dhaka were
deeply saddened to see the loss of life and violence on the streets.

In the tweet, it said it is vital that a peaceful way forward for
participatory and peaceful elections is found.