At least five persons were killed, over 100 injured, trains and a Hindu temple were attacked as opposition parties on Sunday enforced a 60-hour strike across Bangladesh demanding a neutral caretaker Government to oversee the next general election.
Supporters of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its rightwing ally Jamaat-e-Islami set afire vehicles and exploded crude bombs in the capital city Dhaka as the strike got under way early moring on Sunday.
The incidents of clashes, arson, vandalism and homemade bomb blasts were reported from other parts of the country, including port city Chittagong, Rajshahi, Natore and Bogra.
In Rajshahi, demonstrators attacked a Hindu temple and vandalised several shops, Bdnews24 reported. In Chittagong, the report said picketers stopped an auto-rickshaw carrying a pregnant woman to a hospital and set it afire.Police recovered gunpowder and 17 handmade bombs from a house in the Dhaka University staff quarters here.
Opposition supporters tried to set on fire a record room of Dhaka chief metropolitan magistrate's court using petrol. Officials said the blaze damaged some documents. However, public life in Dhaka remained largely normal as people joined their works.
In northwestern Joypurhat, the opposition members set two trains afire, injuring nearly 70 passengers.Demonstrators torched the two trains - Rupsha Express and Rocket Mail – within a short span of time at Joypurhat, a railway spokesman told PTI. The trains were bound for southwestern Khulna, he added. .