The BNP-led 20-party alliance on Tuesday called a fresh 48-hour countrywide hartal from 6am Wednesday to 6am Friday demanding the safe return of ‘missing’ BNP joint secretary general Salahuddin Ahmed to his family members. Hot on the heels of its 72-hour nationwide shutdown programme that is scheduled to end 6am on Wednesday, BNP joint secretary general Barkatullah Bulu, on behalf of the alliance, announced the fresh shutdown programme. The hartal will be enforced alongside the 20-party’s nonstop countrywide transport blockade. Besides, the alliance will stage demonstrations across the country on Thursday to push for the demand. Bulu urged the country’s people to arrange prayer sessions in mosques, temples, churches and other worship places on Friday for the wellbeing of Salahuddin. Earlier on Saturday, the BNP alliance called a 72-hour nationwide hartal for the seventh consecutive time from 6am Sunday to push for its various demands, including a fresh national election under a non-party administration alongside its ongoing countrywide indefinite transport blockade. Though it had extended their earlier 6th consecutive 72-hour hartal to 48 hours on the same grounds, the alliance for the first time called a fresh 48-hour hartal to push for a different issue. The alliance had already enforced six consecutive spells of 120-hour hartal on working days — from 6m Sunday to 6m Friday– since February 1 killing over a hundred people and disrupting the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams. 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 ‘Democracy Killing Day’. –UNB, Dhaka.
