DHAKA, 28 May 2004 — An opposition strike shut schools, transport and businesses in northeastern Bangladesh yesterday in a protest against the bombing of a mosque in which the British ambassador was injured.
Three people were killed and 60 injured when the bomb exploded last week at the Hazrat Shahjalal Mosque in the town of Sylhet. The envoy, Anwar Choudhury, was hit by splinters in the legs as he prayed there.
The Awami League, which called the strike, accused the government of failing to provide adequate security for Choudhury and hundreds of people attending the prayers.
“We have called the strike to denounce the shameful, notorious incident and also to protest against the government’s failure to give security to the people,” Abdus Samad Azad, a former foreign minister and key Awami League leader, told reporters.
Police said the strike was peaceful. It covered Sylhet and the neighboring districts of Moulvibazar, Habiganj and Sunamganj — Choudhury’s ancestral home. Choudhury went to Britain at an early age before returning as high commissioner. He was on a trip to his ancestral home at the time of the attack, only a week after he took up the Bangladesh job. Police have detained 17 suspects in last week’s bombing.
Meanwhile, as oil prices soared on the international market yesterday, Bangladesh ruled out any possibility of oil price hike in the country in the near future.
“We have a stock for three months. So the present price hike on the international market will not affect us right now,” State Minister for Energy A.K.M. Mosharraf Hossain told newsmen in Dhaka. He said the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) is watching the world oil-market situation. “We’ll be affected only if high price continues in the coming months,” Mosharraf said.
