0
DHAKA, Jan 6: Troops patrolled the streets of the Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Saturday ahead of a nationwide transport blockade called by political parties that are boycotting a parliamentary election due later this month.
The vote is set for Jan 22, but a multi-party alliance led by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina has said it will not take part, accusing the interim government charged with organising the polls of favouring her opponents.
People trying to avoid the blockade scrambled onto crowded buses, trains and ferries leaving the capital.
Around 50 people were killed on Saturday when a bus carrying passengers out of Dhaka ahead of the protest crashed and caught fire southeast of the capital, police said.
The interim government in charge of holding a free and fair election has said it will use troops to keep the peace in the run-up to the vote.
At least 45 people have been killed and hundreds injured in clashes between supporters of immediate past prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia and her rival Sheikh Hasina.
Khaleda, chief of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), ended her five-year tenure as prime minister in late October and handed power to the interim government headed by President Iajuddin Ahmed.
Hasina, who heads the Awami League and the multi-party alliance, accuses Iajuddin of favouring Khaleda in the coming polls and has demanded his resignation as chief of the caretaker authority.
The alliance has called for the blockade on Sunday in a new bid to force Iajuddin and some election officials to step down.
Iajuddin has refused to quit. He is backed by the BNP and its ally Jamaat-i-Islami.
POLICE WARNINGS: Police used loudspeakers to urge Dhaka citizens to stay calm and not to join the blockade that is expected to close down transport, business, schools and ports.
“We urge you not to attend a rally or gathering carrying any weapons including wooden sticks or iron rods that could be used to cause violence or disrupt peace,” police said.
A.S.M. Shahjahan, an adviser to the previous caretaker government in 2001 and a former police chief, said the country was headed for a period of serious trouble.
Mohammad Ali, acting chief of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, urged Iajuddin to take immediate steps to resolve the “ongoing crisis politically, instead of using force, before it is too late”.
Security forces were on alert across the country as fears of violence heightened ahead of the blockade.
In a statement on Saturday, the European Union said it was “deeply concerned and disappointed by recent developments relating to the parliamentary elections in Bangladesh, in particular the decision by major parties to withdraw from participating on Jan 22”.
“A failure of the current electoral process would be a major setback for democracy in Bangladesh and for the international credibility of the country,” the EU said, adding that “it further raises the prospect of protracted instability costing the country in human, development and economic terms”.—Reuters
