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7 vehicles torched; Muhith for legal measures to stop hartal
[Bangla Daily Star] At least seven vehicles were set on fire in the capital yesterday, as the BNP-led opposition geared up for a countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal
... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
today to protest the fuel price hike.

The vehicles were set ablaze at Ramna, Azimpur, Gulshan, Mirpur, Tejgaon, Dhanmondi, and Old Dhaka.

Police suspect pro-hartal activists might have torched the vehicles to create panic among the city dwellers.

Also yesterday, at least 10 cocktails were went kaboom! on the Dhaka University campus, and in Farmgate and Sabujbagh areas.

On the DU campus, Bangladesh Chhatra League
... the student wing of the Bangla Awami League ...
cadres assaulted four photojournalists when the lens men were going past Salimullah Mohammedan Hall shortly after the blasts around 5:30pm.

Meanwhile,
...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter wished he had a cup of coffee. Even instant would do...
Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday said hartal-like activities should be stopped by legal measures.

Once hartal was a tool for protest, but now it has become a means to unleash violence, he observed, adding that no one has the right to disrupt public safety.

The minister was talking to news hounds after attending a gathering of village police in Sylhet.

The BNP-led 18-party alliance announced the hartal on Friday, the day the latest fuel price hike took effect.

The hike has also triggered protests from left-leaning political parties and transport owners.
Posted by: Fred 2013-01-06
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=359477