KHULNA/DHAKA, 8 September 2003 — Bangladesh’s main opposition party yesterday called a one-day general strike in the southwestern city of Khulna after a bomb blast killed another of its local leaders.
The Awami League’s local chapter said it would hold weeklong protests, including a strike today in the industrial city.
Local Awami League leader Quamrul Islam, 50, was killed and 20 others were injured late Saturday when a bomb went off in a market where the party office is located. Four of the wounded were in serious condition, hospital officials said.
Police said powerful explosives were used in the bomb and they had detained one man for questioning, but they were not yet able to identify the assailant.
The city appeared tense yesterday with few people out on the streets, residents said. Pre-funeral prayers were held for Quamrul Islam yesterday before his body was taken for burial to his native village.
It was the second attack on an Awami League leader in Khulna in two weeks.
On Aug. 25 the party’s local president, Manjurul Imam, was gunned down in an attack that also killed a fellow lawyer and a rickshaw puller who was transporting them.
The Purbo Banglar Communist Party (Jannajuddho), a banned far-left outfit, claimed responsibility for killing Quamrul Imam, saying he was a “class enemy.”
Nine people have been arrested in connection with Imam’s killing and police say they are hunting for other suspects.
Faruq Khan, an influential Awami League MP, traveled yesterday to Khulna from Dhaka to ask the district police chief for more security for party leaders.
Separately, police said a local politician and his bodyguard were shot dead late Saturday in the nearby Bagerhat district, although their identities were not immediately clear.
Khulna has in the past few months seen numerous attacks by criminal gangs and a rise in the activities of far-left outfits, which in recent years had seemed to be on the decline.
Officials say the leftist movements, whose stronghold is in Bangladesh’s southwest, routinely engage in extortion and kidnapping for ransom.
The government in July announced a drive against leftist extremists codenamed Operation Spider Web.
Meanwhile, lawyers in Bangladesh went on strike yesterday after violent clashes overnight with activists of the ruling Nationalist-Islamist coalition left about 70 people injured.
The strike was called by the Bangladesh Bar Council to protest the alleged attack on a peaceful demonstration by the legal practitioners in Dhaka at the weekend.
Witnesses said most of the injuries were caused by police beating up demonstrators with batons. Several others were hurt in tear gas shelling by security forces inside the court complex in the old quarters of the capital city.
The demonstration by lawyers coincided with an official visit to the court complex by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia whose Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is the biggest faction in the coalition.
Opposition lawyers had stationed themselves with black flags of protests before Khaleda’s arrival at the venue to formally open a new annex building for housing additional courts.
