Staff Reporter :
The BNP-led 20-party alliance on Sunday called a fresh 48-hour countrywide hartal, excluding Dhaka and
Chittagong cities, from 6:00am today (Monday). The hartal, alongside its ongoing non-stop blockade programme, will continue until 6:00am on Wednesday.
BNP’s another Joint Secretary General Barkatullah Bulu, on behalf of the alliance, in a statement on Sunday announced the hartal programme demanding the safe return of its Joint Secretary General Salahuddin Ahmed and other missing leaders and workers to their families.
The hartal was also called for pressing the demands for holding a fresh national election under a non-party government system and the release of the leaders and workers of the BNP-led alliance.
The statement said that the Dhaka and Chittagong cities would remain out of the purview of the hartal due to the city corporation polls. He urged all to make the hartal programme a success.
Earlier, the 20-party alliance had enforced eight consecutive spells of hartal amid the non-stop blockade on all working days from February 1 to March 25 giving a 12-hour break 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 6:00 am Friday. However, it did not extend the hartal last week due to the Independence Day.
Meanwhile, the BNP-led alliance staged countrywide demonstration on Sunday on the same issues. As part of the countrywide programme, leaders and workers of the alliance brought out processions in several parts of the city and some other parts of the country.
In the city, the alliance brought out a procession in Moghbazar area in the morning. Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD), the student wing of the BNP, brought out a procession in front of Bangla Academy on Dhaka University campus.
Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir also brought out several sudden processions in the morning.
