Staff Reporter :The first day of the 72-hour nationwide hartal enforced by the BNP-led 20-party alliance amid the indefinite blockade programme passed off almost peacefully without any major incident of violence on Sunday. The hartal began at 6am yesterday and will end at 6pm on Wednesday. The SSC and its equivalent exams which were scheduled for Sunday have already been deferred to Friday due to hartal. Stray incidents of violence were reported from different places during the hartal hours on the first day.Miscreants torched a passenger bus in city’s Tantibazar area on Sunday afternoon. Fire Service sources said miscreants set fire to a passenger bus of Skyline Paribahan in the area around 4:15pm. No one was reportedly injured in the incident. However, on information, a unit of fire fighters rushed to the spot to douse the blaze. In another incident, miscreants hurled cocktails targeting a gathering of a faction of Ganojagaron Manch at Shahbagh yesterday evening leaving at least three persons injured. Imran H Sarkar, convenor of a faction, was addressing the rally at that time. Later, a procession was brought out protesting the bomb attack.The City bus service was almost normal during the hartal. The number of private vehicles was also higher on the roads than other hartal days. The rickshaws plied on the city roads as usually. On the other hand, many passengers suffered a lot as inter-district buses remained stranded on the terminals. A few buses of short-distance routes departed Mahakhali, Syedabad and Gabtoli Bus Terminals early in the morning.Besides, the services of Bangladesh Railway and Biman Bangladesh remained uninterrupted.Cargo operations at the ports in Chittagong and Mongla were partially disrupted due to the strike.
