Dhaka’s Nayapaltan area turned into a battlefield following clashes between BNP men and members of law enforcement agencies on Saturday afternoon centring the party’s scheduled rally.
Following the clashes, BNP’s grand rally was suspended halfway through the programme.
At one stage of clashes, BNP central leaders – including its Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir – left the stage and entered the party office in Nayapaltan. Before leaving the stage, Fakhrul called a dawn-to-dusk strike across the country for today.
Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami also held a rally in Motijheel despite failing to secure police permission for the event.
Meanwhile, the Awami League held a “peace and development rally" at the southern gate of the Baitul Mukarram mosque in the capital.
On Saturday, a police constable was killed and at least 41 cops were injured in the clashes between law enforcers and BNP-Jamaat men in Motijheel, Kakrail, and Naya Paltan.
The deceased policeman is Amirul Islam, 30, hailing from Charkatori village of Daulatpur upazila under Manikganj district. He worked at the Counter Terrorism & Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).
DMP Deputy Commissioner (Media) Faruk Hossain said 22 injured policemen are undergoing treatment at Rajarbagh Police Hospital and 19 others at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
They were injured in Motijheel, Kakrail, and Naya Paltan areas while on duty, Faruk Hossain added.
In other developments, at least three journalists were allegedly beaten up by BNP protesters during the clashes around the Kakrail area.
The injured are – a reporter for Daily Kalbela Rafsan Jani, a photographer for Daily Inqilab Md Masum, and Tanvir Ahammed, a multimedia journalist of the Daily Ittefaq. They were rushed to DMCH for treatment.
BNP activists beat up Rafsan when he was taking footage of BNP activists beating up a cop at Kakrail's Nightingale intersection. The BNP men took away his phone and beat him with rods and sticks.
The protesters around the Kakrail area assaulted the two other journalists.
Meanwhile, members of the law enforcement agencies reportedly used sound grenades and tear shells to disperse BNP men who retaliated with brickbats.
Chased by the police, the BNP men took a position in different alleys and streets in Nayapaltan area from there they were pelting brickbats, stones and other objects targeting police and others.
In the act of violence, protesters allegedly set fire to a bus, a pickup truck and several rooms of the BRTC bus depot in Kamalapur. Besides, a group of protesters torched several vehicles including ambulances parked on the premises of Rajarbagh Central Police Hospital.
In the evening, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said that BNP supporters showered brickbats on police, burned cars and buses, killed a cop and then called a strike for Sunday.
"We want to assure that if anyone blocks roads, vandalises and sets fire to vehicles, we will take action. Everything will move normally," he said after visiting the injured police personnel at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Eleven platoons of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) have been deployed in the capital to maintain law and order in the night. They will be on duty on Sunday as well. Transport owners said they will operate buses and minibuses nationwide during the hartal day.
