UNB, Dhaka: The BNP-led 20-party alliance on Sunday called a 48-hour countrywide hartal, excluding Dhaka and Chittagong cities, from 6am on Monday demanding the return of missing BNP joint secretary general Salahuddin Ahmed and other alliance leaders to their families unharmed. BNP joint secretary general Barkatullah Bulu, on behalf of the alliance, announced the shutdown programme which is also meant for pressing the alliance’s demands for holding a fresh national election under a non-party administration and the release of its senior leaders. He said the hartal will be enforced in addition to their ongoing non-stop blockade programme. Bulu said the Dhaka and Chittagong cities will remain out of the purview of hartal due to the city corporation polls. The opposition combine had earlier enforced eight consecutive spells of hartal amid the non-stop blockade on working days — from 6m Sunday to 6am Friday — from February 1 till 6am on March 25 giving a 12-hour pause on March 10 for celebrating the victory of Bangladesh Cricket Team over England. The alliance used to call a 72-hour hartal from Sunday every week and then extend it by 48 hours more ending at 6am Friday. However, it did not extend the hartal last week due to the Independence Day. BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia enforced the blockade for an indefinite period on January 5 after having failed to come out of her Gulshan office to join a planned rally of the 20-party alliance in the city to mark the ‘Democracy Killing Day’.
