DHAKA, 27 April 2004 -— A dozen Awami League lawmakers yesterday brought out a small procession from the Dhanmondi Road-27 crossing, one of the scheduled melting pots for the opposition demonstrators, and demonstrated on Mirpur Road in Dhaka city to show “mass no-confidence” in the four-party alliance government.
Yesterday was the last day of their three-day street program under a ceaseless spell of agitation to press for the resignation of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led coalition government for snap polls.
Led by deputy leader of the opposition in Parliament Abdul Hamid, the MPs chanted anti-government slogans and marched up to Kalabagan and back to the Road-27 crossing, -a distance of a quarter of a kilometer, with huge police escorts behind them and in front, barring party activists from getting nowhere near them.
Later from the footpath on the Road-27, Mohammad Nasim MP made an address, although there was no audience, bar the police and journalists, terming “repression” of the AL leaders, workers and innocent people as a violation of human rights.
“By arresting people on a massive scale the government has created a frightening situation, which only can be likened to the 1971 situation,” said the ex-home minister. He criticized the government for harassing people in the name of obstructing Awami League’s “peaceful” political programs.
Separated Twin Dies
Bangladeshi surgeons said yesterday that one of the baby twins they separated in an operation the day before had died.
Doctors separated the girls named Maria and Halima, who were joined at the navel, 11 days after they were born but Maria died early yesterday, doctor Zakir Hossain Khan said.
“Maria passed away at five past midnight (1805 GMT Sunday) and Halima is still not out of danger due to the risk of infection that remains,” he said.
Two previous operations in Bangladesh to separate conjoined twins have resulted in the death of one or both of the children.
