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The BNP and 32 other like-minded opposition parties staged a procession of showdowns Friday in different parts of the capital, by way of the first joint programme in what is being billed as a collective movement to take down the incumbent government and set the stage for free and fair elections.
They also separately announced sit-in programmes across the country on January 11 as their next course of action, to press home their 10-point demand, including the resignation of the current government and formation of a polls-time caretaker government.
Meanwhile, the leaders and activists of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami locked in clashes with police in the city’s Malibagh, Paltan and Motijheel areas, as they tried to bring out processions as part of the simultaneous movement.
Police dispersed the Jamaat leaders and activists by lobbing tear gas shells and firing rubber bullets, leaving at least 10 people injured. Police also arrested some leaders and activists of the Islamist party.
BNP brought out a massive procession from in front of the party’s Naya Paltan area around 3:30pm. It ended at Maghbazar after parading different roads through Bijaynagar, Kakrail, Shantinagar and Malibagh intersections.
In a brief address before the procession commenced, BNP Standing Committee member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, who has been acting as the party's spokesperson since the December 9 arrest of Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, announced a four-hour sit-in programme — from 10am to 2pm — across the country for January 11.
In the capital, he said their party will observe the programme in front of the Naya Paltan central office.
“We believe that the parties and alliances which have organised the mass procession programme today [Friday] will also announce the mass sit-in programme. By carrying out this programme, the government will be shown warning signal number 2,” he said.
BNP policymakers said the programme was worked out for January 11 keeping in mind the political changeover that took place on that day in 2007 — an episode popularly known as 1/11 in the country.
Mosharraf said the Awami League candidate in Rangpur city polls lost her security money as people are not with this party.
