- Image Credit: AFP
- Bangladeshi riot police detain lawmaker Harun-ur-Rashid (left) and former lawmaker Nazimuddin Alam (right), both from the opposition BNP, during a nationwide strike in Dhaka on Monday.
Dhaka: Scores of people, including an opposition lawmaker, were detained after protesters set two buses on fire and smashed several vehicles on the second day of strike against manoeuvres to scrap the caretaker government system in line with an apex court verdict.
Officials said police arrested Harun-ur-Rashid and eight other opposition leaders and activists from ex-prime minister Khalida Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Scores of activists were jailed for up to three months after summary trials in mobile courts since the strike started Monday.
"They [activists] were detained briefly or jailed on charges of [compromising] law and order [by] obstructing vehicular movement and frightening people to enforce the [strike]," a home ministry spokesman said.
The BNP and its Islamic fundamentalist ally called the 36-hour nationwide strike, the second in a week, to protest the plans to scrap provisions instituting the non-party interim government to oversee elections amending the constitution — under an apex court decision.
Police Monday detained two other BNP stalwarts, former home minister Altaf Hussain Chowdhury and Hafizuddin Ahmad, for "instigating violence" while a Dhaka court was expected to hear a police petition seeking to remand them in custody for 10 days.
House panel report
A special parliamentary committee, being boycotted by the opposition, last week submitted its report to the house suggesting the abolition of the system in line with a crucial apex court verdict last month.
On May 10, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court declared the 13th amendment to the constitution, that introduced the existing caretaker government system, as illegal.
However, the court said the next tenth and eleventh parliamentary elections "might be" held under the existing system.
Bangladesh amended the constitution to allow for the introduction of the caretaker government system in 1996 after a protracted campaign by the now ruling Awami League of incumbent Prime Minister Shaikh Hasina, which was the main opposition then, while the then ruling BNP was initially opposed to the idea.
But the initiatives to scrap the system mean the next general elections, due in 2014, will be overseen by the current government — a move the opposition has resisted, saying they fear it could lead to vote rigging in favour of the ruling party.