Arsonists with apparent ties to mainstream opposition parties torched at least four buses, including a state-owned double-decker, amid cracker blasts that rang out in much of the city in the final hours to today's countrywide hartal [strike]. Abdul Mannan, a railway staff, was badly injured in an arson attack on a BRTC double-decker near Mahanagar Natya Mancha in Gulistan, which left several other passengers with burns yesterday. The main opposition Awami League (AL) and six left-leaning political parties united in the hartal call to protest the stabbing of writer Humayun Azad, now being treated for head and jaw wounds he suffered in a machete attack on February 27. Police barred AL leaders and workers from bringing out processions from their Bangabandhu Avenue headquarters, now ringed with barbed-wire fences on all sides in pre-hartal police action. Some activists of the main opposition party sneaked out and assembled in front of the nearby office of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (Inu), one of the three parties that joined the AL in the hartal call, and took out a procession. Police allowed leaders and workers of the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), Workers Party and JSD to bring out processions. Gonotantri Party, Samyabadi Dal and Gono Azadi League, constituents of the 11-party left alliance, expressed solidarity with the 6:00am to 6:00pm general strike, the first opposition unity since October 2001 against the government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and the fifth shutdown across the country since February 12.
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