Ganatantra Mancha, an alliance of seven like-minded parties, will stage a road march towards Chattogram from the capital on July 19-21 next to press home their 14-point demand, including the resignation of the government and holding the next election under an interim government.
Before the road march, the opposition alliance will hold rallies in district towns and metropolitan cities and a road march in the capital to drum up public support in favour of their demands.
Hasnat Qayyum, chief coordinator of the Rastra Sangskar Andolon, one of the components of the alliance, announced the programme at a brief rally before staging a demonstration towards the Secretariat on Monday.
"We will hold a road march from Dhaka to Chattogram on July 19 to 21 to realise our 14-point demand, including the resignation of the government, dissolution of parliament, next election under an interim government and reform of the constitution," he said.
Earlier, the Ganatantra Mancha leaders staged a four-day road march from Dhaka to Dinajpur on June 4-7 during which they allegedly came under attack in different areas.
The leaders and activists of the alliance gathered in front of the Jatiya Press Club on Monday morning to observe their pre-declared demonstration programme towards the Secretariat in protest against the ongoing load-shedding and the abnormal price hikes of daily essentials.
After a short rally, several hundred leaders and workers of the Ganatantra Mancha took out a procession towards the Secretariat around 1:15pm.
As they reached Zero Point, police obstructed them by putting up a barricade. The demonstrators engaged in a scuffle with the law enforcers when they tried to remove the barricade, leaving some people from both sides injured.
At one stage, the protesters left the Zero Point area in the face of obstruction by the law enforcers.
Before leaving the area, Saiful Haque, the coordinator of the alliance and general secretary of Bangladesh-er Biplobi Workers Party said, "We condemn the way the police have obstructed our peaceful demonstration."
He called upon the law enforcers to discharge their responsibilities neutrally with professionalism. "The people of the country don't want to see you as an abettor of the government."
