BNP calls 48-hour blockade from Sunday

Staff Reporter :
The main opposition party-BNP- and its allies in the ongoing movement on Thursday again announced a 48-hour fresh road-rail-waterway blockade across the country starting from Sunday morning to protest the schedule for the next national election announced by the Election Commission.

The party’s Senior Joint-Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi announced the programme at a virtual press briefing on Thursday afternoon.

It will be the ninth round of blockade programme of the opposition parties since October 31.

He said that the blockade would begin at 6:00am on Sunday and end at 6:00am on Tuesday.

The BNP leader said that the blockade was also meant for mounting pressure on the government to quit, hold the next election under a non-party neutral government and release party leaders and activists, including its secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

Rizvi said that other opposition parties, who have long been carrying out the simultaneous movement with BNP, would also observe a similar programme.

The fresh programme was announced around three hours before the end of the opposition’s hartal which will end at 6:00pm on Thursday.

Rizvi thanked the country’s people and the opposition leaders and activists for making their hartal a success.

The opposition parties observed blockades in eight phases to mount pressure on the Awami League government to quit power and hold the next election under a non-partisan administration.

BNP and some other parties enforced a 24-hour road-rail-waterway blockade across the country starting from Wednesday morning and a daylong hartal on Thursday that will end at 6:00pm on Thursday.

They also observed a nationwide dawn-to-dusk hartal on October 29 in protest against the attacks on BNP’s grand rally at Nayapaltan that ended amid the incidents of torching vehicles and clashes, leaving three people dead.