The Jatiya Party has called a 48-hour hartal (shutdown) in Rangpur division for tomorrow demanding release of its party chief HM Ershad and protesting blasts at its district party office. The Rangpur city and district units of the JP came…
Yet another spell of countrywide blockade is here and the people of the capital find their normal life disrupted as businesses remain shut, public vehicles off the roads, shopping malls padlocked and education hampered. Among the top hardest-hit people, uncertainty…
International rights watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) has asked the Bangladesh government to issue publicly order to security forces so that they stay away from using lethal or excessive force when dealing with protesters. The leaders of all political parties,…
The central bank on Sunday has requested the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to beef up security at all banks in the wake of vandalism at different establishments, including bank branches across the country. AFM Asaduzzaman, general manager at governor…
Police arrested six activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, with huge explosives, bomb making materials and Jihadi books during a raid in Kalyanpur area of the capital today. On information, a team of police conducted a…
Jamaat-Shibir activists went on rampage torching, vandalising and looting numerous houses, business establishments, government and private offices and vehicles in at least 14 districts across the country since the execution of Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah last night. Jamaat-e-Islami and…
At least 150 vehicles were torched and over 50 vandalised as Jamaat-Shibir activists went on the rampage across the country today protesting execution of Abdul Quader Mollah. Of those, 85 vehicles were burnt in Bogra, 12 in the capital and…
A teenage bus helper, who suffered severe burn injuries while miscreants hurled a petrol bomb at a bus in the capital, lost his battle for life this evening. Seventeen-year-old Hasan died around 6:45pm at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical…
Three policemen were injured, one critically, as the activists of BNP and its key ally, Jamaat-e-Islami, attacked the law enforcers in Dinajpur today, on the fourth day of the opposition’s 131-hour countrywide blockade. Of the injured, constable Yusuf Ali, 40,…
At least 46 people including 10 policemen were injured as blockaders clashed with law enforcers and resorted to arson, vandalism and explosion in different parts of the country today. Of the injured, four were bullet hit in Kaliakoir upazila of…
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…
The BNP-led 18-party alliance yesterday called another three-day blockade of roads, rail and waterways from 6:00am today, hours after one ended leaving at least 19 people dead and scores injured. The opposition said it was enforcing this blockade to press…
One attack after another, one death after another and they have seen enough. The arson victims and their families are now fuming in rage and want an end to this “politics of killing”. The deaths in quick succession of two…
The fresh spell of 72-hour blockade from today will again mess up the schedules for all exams being held in the country. The government once again rescheduled today’s primary and ebtedai terminal tests, which had been deferred last week due…
More than five million people affiliated with the transport sector are in great misery, as the country’s roads and waterways communications nearly collapsed in the 71-hour blockade that ended early yesterday. One million others who run various businesses around terminals…
Unknown miscreants set fire to a passenger bus at Mirpur in the capital this afternoon. There was no report of casualties at the time of filing the report at 3:00pm. Sources in the fire department headquarters confirmed the incident of…
A woman was critically injured as a cocktail hits her on the head in Shantipur in the capital today around 3:30pm in the afternoon. Identified as Anowara Begum, 42, a cocktail thrown from a rally landed squarely on her head, exploding…
Main opposition BNP has called a dawn-to-dusk hartal in Chittagong district for tomorrow protesting an attack on the house of party lawmaker Mostafa Kamal Pasha where his son sustained bullet wounds. Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, president of Chittagong city BNP…
Jamaat-e-Islami and pro-Jamaat student organisation Islami Chhatra Shibir activists torched at least four vehicles, vandalised three and blasted several cocktails in Chittagong city during Jamaat’s dawn-to-dusk hartal in Chittagong district yesterday protesting recent murders of a leader and an activist.…
The activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, torched two battery-run three-wheelers in Chittagong as Jamaat observed a daylong hartal (shutdown) in the district today. Jamaat has enforced the strike protesting the murders of a Sitakunda leader…
Activists of Islami Chhatra Shibir clashed with cops, vandalised vehicles and blasted crude bombs at the capital’s Merul Badda yesterday. About 100 Shibir men brought out a procession in the area around 8:15am as part of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s countrywide demonstrations…
Jamaat-e-Islami yesterday called a dawn-to-dusk hartal in Chittagong district for today protesting the murders of a Sitakunda leader and an activist. Hours after the announcement, police picked up nine people from Chittagong city’s Momin Road after Jamaat-Shibir activists brought out…
A daylong hartal enforced by Pabna BNP demanding release of Shamsur Rahman Shimul Bishwas, special assistant to party Chairperson Khaleda Zia, passed off peacefully in the district yesterday. Police arrested Shimul Biswas, also joint secretary of Bangladesh Road Transport Workers’…
Jatiya Party (JP) Chairman HM Ershad yesterday said he had decided to participate in the next parliamentary poll as he does not want politics of hartal and conflict. “Do not threaten us. There is a saying ‘tit-for-tat’ and we know…
The Jamaat-e-Islami has called a daylong hartal (shutdown) in Chittagong district for tomorrow protesting killing of a union-level leader in Sitakunda on Wednesday and an activists in Mirsarai early today. The ongoing primary terminal examinations however will remain out of…
An activist of Jamaat-e-Islami died early today, five hours after he came under an attack by unknown miscreants in Mirsarai upazila of Chittagong. Protesting the death, Jamaat has enforced a daylong hartal in Chittagong district for tomorrow, our correspondent reports.…
Within just six days, all is lost for Sanchita, whose life would never be the same again. Minus the thick vermillion used to redden the parting of her hair, she seemed to have aged beyond the 25 years of…
“My father died last night- what does it mean? Can I still lie down beside him on this bed?” – three and a half years old Asir was asking these questions pointing to the stretcher carrying his father’s motionless body…
An air of mixed emotions ran at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital where scores of victims of hartal violence have been receiving treatment. Some faces were etched with grief of seeing their loved ones burnt — helpless.…
On the last day of the 84-hour hartal, pickets removed rail line sleeper clips causing a train to derail and 30 passengers to get hurt at Kaliganj of Lalmonirhat early yesterday. The injured were taken to a local health complex…
At least 10 people, including a girl, were injured when hartal supporters set a bus alight at Rayerbagh in the capital’s Jatrabari yesterday. Victims and police suspect the perpetrators were inside the bus posing as passengers and they used gun…
Hartals have always been violent, more or less, and have often taken innocent lives. Yet there is something gory about the BNP-Jamaat’s shutdowns this time. The number of people killed and injured in pre-hartal and hartal violence in the…
Pickets are killing and injuring innocents to enforce hartals for days. At times, it becomes evident that humanity is lost. But then we are taken aback to see that there are still some people who risk their lives in these…
Fed up with the long spells of shutdowns for the last three weeks, people yesterday defied the opposition-sponsored hartal and risked their lives coming out to the streets for daily work. A large number of businesses, offices and roadside shops…
Hartal and pre-hartal violence has left at least one person dead, nine people burnt and over 120 people injured. Pro-hartal pickets hurled a petrol bomb inside a packed human haulier, burning six of its passengers in Laxmi Bazar of Old…
The BNP-led opposition alliance has extended its three-day countrywide hartal from today by 12 hours in protest at the arrest of its top leaders on Friday. Called to press for a non-party polls-time government, the shutdown will now end at…
Monir, the 14-year-old boy set on fire by pickets during the opposition’s hartal on Monday, has gone beyond all pains and sufferings. He died an agonising death at Dhaka Medical College Hospital before daybreak yesterday. For most of his stay…
Fourteen-year-old Monir, who sustained burn injuries when pickets set fire to his father’s covered van on Dhaka-Gazipur highway during hartal hours last Monday, succumbed to his injuries early today. The schoolboy breathed his last around 4:30am at the intensive care…
With the entire body swollen and blackened beyond recognition, Monir is drifting in and out of consciousness at the intensive care unit of Burn and Plastic Surgery Unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Doctors say he is fully aware of…
Monir is 14-year-old. Sumi is eight. Both live outside Dhaka. They came to see the capital and got critically injured in arson by pickets. The two kids are among the seven who fell victim to hartal violence from Sunday night…
With due respect for our High Court and Appellate Division judges, we humbly draw their kind attention to our front page picture of 14-year old Monir and urge them to read his story and that of the 8-year old Shumi.…
Two lives were lost yesterday as the opposition alliance enforced its first day of countrywide 60-hour hartal, inviting more troubles for the economy as well as for the low-income families. The BNP-led 18-party opposition combine enforced the shutdown, the second…
Taking no heed of the plea of two million Junior School Certificate and Junior Dakhil Certificate examinees, the BNP-led 18-party alliance yesterday called a 60-hour countrywide hartal from tomorrow morning. In a span of seven days, this would be the…
Yet another child has fallen victim to a cocktail blast in the capital yesterday. This brings the total number of children’s casualties to seven, including one dead in growing political tension of the last six days. Aged about 10, third…
Around 20 lakh schoolchildren are all set to bear the brunt of the ongoing political turmoil, thanks to the BNP-led opposition’s planned three-day blockade from Monday, which coincides with the start of the JSC and JDC examinations. And the woes…
Nine-year-old Rahima has become the latest victim of the ongoing episode of political turmoil. Injured by an explosion of a stray crude bomb, she is now undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Doctors say the least that can happen…
Anik Sarkar, a day labourer from Keraniganj in his fifties, has had to skip lunch in the last three days due to the countrywide hartal called by the BNP-led 18-party alliance. The 60-hour-long shutdown has dealt a heavy blow to…
These are hartal days — these are testing times for the working class. These are times when the political class plays tough for power while the working class suffers. And these are times when the working class people are…
The ongoing 60-hour countrywide shutdown enforced by the opposition has put air passengers, especially homeward bound hajj pilgrims and migrant workers, in a serious trouble as hundreds were stuck in the city. The pilgrims, who have performed religious rituals during…
