... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
s called by the opposition, said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide...in parliament yesterday.
Besides increasing police patrol and involvement of intelligence agencies, it will set a plan to maintain law and order during hartal hours, she said. Patrolling of police has already been increased at some sensitive points in the capital and law enforcers have also been deployed to frisk people upon suspicion, Hasina added.
She informed politicians that a total of 59 cases had been filed across the country in connection with "untoward incidents" in the recent hartals enforced by the main opposition BNP and its allies. Five people were killed and 83 others injured while 79 vehicles were torched and vandalised during the hartal hours.
The BNP-led opposition enforced a series of hartals across the country after BNP Organising Secretary M Ilias Ali went missing around midnight of April 17 from Banani in Dhaka.
The number of people enjugged
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
in the cases so far is 304, 18 cases are under trial and 41 cases are under investigation, she told the House, adding coppers had been given orders to bring people, who were involved in arson and vandalism, under speedy trial tribunal.