DHAKA: Bangladesh opposition leader Khaleda Zia urged supporters on Monday to stage fresh protests to try to force new elections, at her first public rally since authorities eased her de facto house arrest.

Zia, a two-time former premier and the arch enemy of current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, branded the new government illegal after bloody elections earlier this month that were boycotted by the opposition.

Zia also urged thousands of her supporters rallying in the capital to start a new round of street protests to force Hasina’s new government to hold fresh polls under a neutral caretaker government.

“This government is in power because of gun power, not people’s vote,” she told the rally in the capital’s Suhrawardy Udyan Park.

“This government is illegal. Hold polls very quickly and test your popularity,” she urged it in a speech to the crowd, which police said numbered 35,000.

Zia’s demand for fresh polls follows similar calls from the United States — Bangladesh’s largest trade partner — and other nations, who want the government and the opposition to hold talks as soon as possible.

Zia on Monday repeated her claim that the government has engaged in arbitrary arrests, “enforced disappearances” of party leaders and the murder of opposition activists.

The government has since the polls launched a nationwide crackdown on opposition activists, arresting more than one thousand.

Two days to grill journalist

Meanwhile, a Bangladesh court allowed police on Monday to hold a journalist for a pro-opposition newspaper for two days of questioning and ordered that two of his supervisors be detained temporarily over a story alleging that Indian security forces joined Bangladeshi troops in a crackdown before recent elections.

Information Minister Hasanul Huq Inu has said the report is baseless, and the journalists face possible charges of publishing a false report.

Police had asked to hold all three journalists for the Inqilab newspaper for five days of questioning. Magistrate S.M. Ashiqur Rahman on Monday approved two days of questioning of Ahmed Atique, who wrote the story, but ruled that his two supervisors be held temporarily in jail, not police custody, pending further legal action.