... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
-like agitation programmes and instead called a countrywide demonstration for Sunday.
"Agitation programmes harsher than hartals will be announced from Sunday's protest if Ilias Ali is not returned and if all the false cases filed against party leaders is not withdrawn," said BNP standing committee member Moudud Ahmed at a rally in front of the party's Nayapaltan office in Dhaka.
Amid raids and arrests, senior BNP leaders have gone into hiding, as the government's sudden tough stance against the opposition's continuous agitation on Monday sent waves of panic to the opposition camp.
Over the last few days, police locked away
Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up!
about a dozen top BNP leaders, including Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, and filed several cases against the opposition men in connection with Sunday's kaboom in the secretariat compound and arson and vandalism during the hartal hours.
Party insiders told The Daily Star they did not go for fresh hartal programmes keeping in mind the US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton... sometimes described as
For a good time at 3 a.m. call Hillaryand at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as
Another Edmund Randolph...
and Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's Dhaka visit on May 5 and the Japanese deputy prime minister's visit today.
BNP Chairperson
Khaleda ZiaThree-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ...
assured the US ambassador to Dhaka at a recent meeting of all-out cooperation during Hillary's Bangladesh visit, they added.
Meanwhile,
...back at the wine tasting, Vince was about to start tasting his third quart...
a High Court judge yesterday was embarrassed to hear the bail petitions of 27 BNP men, including its acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, in two cases filed for violence during Sunday's hartal
... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
. He, however, did not mention any reason for his embarrassment.
Another HC bench refused to hear the bail petitions of some opposition leaders, who went into hiding on Monday morning fearing arrests.
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia later held a meeting with some pro-BNP lawyers at her Gulshan office to find out a way for their bails.
The cases were filed on Sunday night with Shahbagh and Tejgaon cop shoppes against top leaders of the BNP-led 18-party alliance and its associated organizations.
The accused include Mirza Fakhrul, party standing committee members Mirza Abbas, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy and Hannan Shah, party Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, party politician Shahiduddin Chowdhury Anee, and Liberal Democratic Party President Oli Ahmed.
In another development, police on Tuesday produced Ruhul Kabir Rizvi before a Dhaka court, seeking 15 days' remand. The court will hear the petition in Rizvi's presence today.
Accused in two cases in connection with hartal hour violence, Rizvi was locked away
Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up!
on Monday evening from the capital's Kakrail area.
Political tensions have been running high since the disappearance of Ilias Ali, an organising secretary of BNP and also a former politician, and his driver around midnight of April 17 from the capital's Banani area.
In protest, the BNP enforced three consecutive countrywide shutdowns from April 22-24 and the BNP-led 18-party alliance enforced two similar lockdowns on April 29-30.
The hartals left five people killed and many vehicles damaged across the country.