Staff Reporter:
The BNP and like-minded opposition parties have enforce a dawn-to-dusk hartal across the country to-day to protest the Election Commission’s schedule for the next national election under the Awami League-led government.
The shutdown, which will begin at 6am and end at 6pm on Tuesday, is also meant to mount pressure on the government to step down and hand over power to a neutral government and release all the arrested BNP leaders and workers, including its secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.
At a press briefing on Saturday, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, one of the few leaders of the party not incarcerated at present, called upon people from all walks of life and the opposition leaders and workers to observe the programme peacefully and make it a success.
“We call upon our leaders and workers at all levels to take to the streets bravely and observe a peaceful strike,” he said.
It will be the fourth round of hartal by the opposition parties since October 29, to go with eleven block-ades that have together disrupted normal life and business every week.
