Thaindian News

Dhaka, July 6 (IANS) Life was hit in Bangladesh Wednesday due to a two-day shutdown called by the country’s main opposition party and its allies to protest the abolition of a non-party caretaker government system through a constitution amendment last week.

Opposition Chief Whip Zainul Abdin Farooque and two policemen were injured in separate clashes between security personnel and political activists supporting the shutdown, reported Star online, the website of Daily Star.

Bangladesh Parliament June 30 passed “The Constitution (Fifteenth Amendment) Bill-2011″, bringing a series of changes, including repeal of the provision for holding national elections under a non-party caretaker government.

It means that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s incumbent Awami League-led government will stay in power during the next parliamentary elections slated for early 2014, reported Xinhua.

Former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its three allies including key Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh announced the shutdown July 3.

BNP has also cited price-hike of essentials, deteriorating law and order, crisis of gas-electricity-water and share market scam as reasons behind the call for the two-day strike.

Most shops, business establishments and educational institutions remained closed and public transport went off the roads due to the strike, which is called hartal here.

There was thin attendance in offices.

Though inter-district buses stayed off the roads, the authorities claimed that operation of trains and flights was as usual.

Footage of a local TV channel showed that opposition Chief Whip Zainul Abdin Farooque suffered a head injury when he was baton charged following a scuffle between his party activists and security personnel in capital Dhaka.

BNP acting Secretary General Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said police have cordoned off the party’s headquarters in Dhaka’s Paltan area since morning and were not letting anyone enter.

The stir has put the South Asian nation virtually on a six-day “holiday” as an alliance of 12 religion-based political parties is also set to enforce a 30-hour shutdown starting from Sunday morning after two weekly holidays in the country Friday and Saturday. The parties are protesting the removal of “Absolute Faith and Trust in Allah” from the country’s constitution.

In pre-strike violence in capital Dhaka, as many as seven buses, two private cars and a van were burnt. In the country’s southeastern Chittagong port city, 20 buses were also reportedly vandalised.

In Bangladesh, the caretaker government system was institutionalised through the 13th amendment in the constitution in 1996 by the then BNP government under pressure from then main opposition Awami League, which is now the ruling party.

Since 1996, a caretaker government has supervised elections held in 1996, 2001 and 2008.

As the outgoing government hands over power, a caretaker government comes into place and its main objective is to create an environment in which an election can be held in a free and fair manner without any political influence of the outgoing government.

The country’s apex court May 10 repealed the 13th amendment in the constitution but said the next 10th and 11th parliamentary elections may be held under the system to avoid any chaos.