DHAKA, 24 August 2004 — Riot police clashed with demonstrators in the Bangladeshi capital yesterday as opposition party activists marched in protest at a grenade attack which killed 19 people, witnesses said.
The police, following about 1,000 anti-government protesters, used batons to control the crowd although there were no arrests, an AFP correspondent said. The demonstrators later scuffled with activists from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the main partner in the ruling coalition government.
BNP supporters also beat up two journalists covering the demonstration leaving them in need of hospital treatment.
The opposition Awami League has called a two-day national strike for today and tomorrow in protest at the grenade attack on Saturday which they say was an assassination attempt against party leader and former Prime Minister Hasina Wajed.
Thousands of opposition activists holding banners reading “Why the bombings, why the bloodshed?” protested against the deadly grenade attack.
In Dhaka, more than 3,000 supporters of the main opposition Awami League staged a peaceful but noisy protest over the attack.
“We want answers” and “Down with (Prime Minister) Khaleda Zia’s government, long live Bangladesh,” shouted the protesters, some holding black flags.
Earlier in the day, former Prime Minister Hasina told reporters that the government “should be ashamed of the incident and resign immediately heeding the people’s voice”.
Mostly peaceful protests also took place in the northeastern town of Sylhet, the port city of Chittagong and other towns. But in Sherpur, a town 250 kilometers northwest of Dhaka, a crude bomb was thrown at an Awami League protest, injuring one.
Meanwhile, panic gripped Dhaka Central Jail as the authorities launched a search operation, following recovery of a grenade from the prison compound. Two more grenades were recovered from the prison campus and a toilet at Railway Hawkers Market.
At six in the morning, a sweeper first noticed a grenade lying in a sewer channel in between Cell No. 26 and Cell No. 90 in the prison house. The jail authorities informed police about the find and army bomb experts took it away from the jail.
Inspector General of Prisons Brig. Gen. Zillur Rahman later told reporters that the grenade could have been thrown in from outside the jail or made its way in because of security lapse.
On Sunday, Awami supporters ransacked a railway station and set fire to a train in protest. At least 50 people were injured in clashes across the country as Awami members accused the government of inaction after the attack.
A two-day national strike to protest over the grenade attacks starts on Tuesday. The capital was edgy yesterday, with many schools and colleges closed and offices reporting low attendance because of the fear of violence. The normally jammed streets were easy to negotiate. “This violence may be part of a big game, but it is a kick to my stomach. I am taking one-third of my normal daily earnings since the explosions,” rickshaw puller Wahidur Rahman said.
