E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

Blockade Violence: 4 killed on first day
[Bangla Daily Star] Announced all of a sudden the night before, the opposition's three-day blockade left at least four people killed and put tens of thousands of travellers across the country in peril on its first day yesterday.

Many people were bewildered after reaching inter-district bus terminals early in the morning having no idea of the fresh blockade, called hours after another ended on Friday morning.

Passengers of long-route buses suffered most as vehicles that hit the roads soon after the previous blockade got stuck at different points all over the country.

The trucks and lorries laden with perishable goods, particularly vegetables, lay stationary for hours on end.

In Rajshahi, Jamaat-Shibir and BNP activists torched a pharmaceutical company's microbus and four rice-carrying trucks throwing petrol bombs at Katakhali Dewanpara on the eve of the blockade.

Bangladesh Truck & Covered Van Owners Association fears the entire road transport system will collapse if the current political impasse continues.

In a statement yesterday, it demanded the government compensate the affected owners; otherwise, they won't be able to return to business.

The BNP-led 18-party alliance called the blockade of roads, rail and waterways for the second time in seven days to press for the cancellation of polls schedule and protest "false cases" against its leaders and "torture and repression" of its activists.

Like in the earlier blockade, violence flared up across the country as opposition men clashed with law enforcers and went kaboom! crude bombs, report our district correspondents.

Two pedestrians in Dhaka and Chittagong, a Shibir activist in Jhenidah and a Jubo Dal man in Pabna were killed, pushing the corpse count in the opposition's back-to-back blockades to 23.

In the capital's Malibagh, pro-blockade activists hurled a petrol bomb at a bus area around 7:30pm. Losing control, the bus crushed Habibur Rahman, 35, to death and injured a rickshaw-puller. Two passengers also suffered burn injuries in the kaboom.


Posted by: Fred 2013-12-01
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=380772