DHAKA, Oct 19: Four people have been killed and more than 1,800 arrested since early Thursday morning when the army launched an operation to improve law and order in the country, sources in the ministry of home affairs said on Saturday.

Some 40,000 army troops have been deployed in all the 64 districts of the country, besides 340 naval personnel in four coastal islands.

Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia informed the cabinet about the operation just a few hours before the deployment began around 1.30am.

While concluding a meeting on Wednesday midnight, she told the cabinet members that the army would be called in any moment in the “aid of civil administration” to improve law and order, and asked the ministers not to approach any army officials to get released any of those picked up during the operation.

On the first day of the drive, a rickshaw-puller was killed and 20 other people were wounded in the military fire in Bogra, some 300km from the Dhaka city.

The firing occurred when the ruling BNP supporters put barricade on the Dhaka-Bogra Highway in protest against the arrest of four BNP leaders, including the president of the Sherpur Thana unit of the party. Earlier, the agitators reportedly hurled bombs at the army men.

More than 1,300 people were picked up in the 64 districts. Some 400 people, including three ward commissioners of the Dhaka City Corporation, were apprehended in the capital. Two of the commissioners belong to the ruling BNP and one to the opposition Awami League.

Besides, a former MP, belonging to the Awami League, was arrested. He was produced before the court the next day. The court sent him to jail.

On Friday, the army rounded up some 400 people, and held more than 100 people till Saturday evening. Some of the arrested people, including the two commissioners, were handed over to police.

Two other people, including the organizing secretary of the Uttara Thana in the capital city, died reportedly during interrogation by army personnel. He had been picked up the day before. On Saturday, another district-level BNP leader from Gopalganj, some 100km from Dhaka, died in the military custody. He had been rounded up on Friday.

The troops also raided the house of the BNP leader and chief whip of Parliament, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, and the residence of State Minister Ahsanul Huq Molla in search of their sons, who are allegedly involved in various criminal activities in their respective areas. “But the PM responded negatively to the request to her party colleagues,” a source in the Prime Minister’s Office said on Saturday evening.

The army crackdown on the “criminals” came following strong criticism of the civil administration for its failure to contain the deteriorating law and order from almost all quarters — the opposition, the civil society, the business community and the western development partners.

Some ruling party leaders are learnt to have been making efforts to bring the drive to an end on the ground that most of the people apprehended by the army belong to the ruling BNP.

Even a section of the government leaders has been criticizing the government for continued violence, extortion and other criminal activities throughout the country. At least two ministers publicly accused the police of maintaining an “unholy alliance” with the identified criminals and thus contributing to the worsening law and order situation last month.

As soon as the operation was kicked off, the opposition accused the government of launching military repression against political opponents.

The Awami League chief and leader of the opposition in Parliament, Sheikh Hasina, at a public rally held in the capital city on Saturday afternoon said that the government had lost the “political legitimacy” to run the country anymore.

She questioned the “constitutional legitimacy” of the ongoing army crackdown, and said that “such army operation has to be conducted within the framework of the constitutional as well as legal provisions.”