DHAKA, 25 April 2004 — As part of its current agitation to press for resignation of the government for a midterm election, the main opposition Awami League has planned to march toward Parliament today when it resumes after a month’s recess.
Opposition chief whip Abdus Shaheed told newsmen in Dhaka yesterday that they would go to the speaker and submit a memorandum protesting the proposed 14th amendment of the constitution.
The 14th amendment contains plans to create 45 reserved seats for women lawmakers, and makes mandatory the hanging of portraits of the president and the prime minister in all government offices across Bangladesh.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led four-party alliance has more than two-thirds majority in the 300-member legislature to amend the constitution while the Awami League has only 59. This will be the first time in the last two years and a half that the alliance government would apply its two-thirds majority to strike changes in the constitution.
Meanwhile, the Awami League yesterday began a three-day “mass no-confidence” demonstration amid baton charge and mass arrest by the police in the capital and outside.
Police put up an invincible shield at four designated places of Zero Point, Motijheel, Shapla Chattar, Tejgaon crossing and Dhanmondi Road No. 27.
Key Awami League leaders and MPs squatted at those points from 10 a.m., but police either charged batons or picked up some of the party’s midlevel leaders and workers to prevent them from joining the anti-government protest.
There were reports of jostling between senior AL leaders and police at Zero Point, Shapla Chattar and Dhanmondi 27 over the arrests of AL workers.
Witnesses said police charged batons at Dhanmondi.
Awami League leaders Begum Matia Chowdhury and Tanjim Ahmed Sohel MP courted arrest at Zero Point at around 1 p.m. after police picked up a party worker from there. Failing to get the release of the arrested worker, the two leaders stepped into the police van. But after half an hour they were released.
