Lagatar24 Desk
Dhaka, Dec 10: Thousands of supporters of Bangladesh’s largest opposition party reached Dhaka on Saturday to protest Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government and call for fresh elections in the country.
The crowd at the Golapbagh sports area, where the event was taking place, erupted into the streets, chanting, “Sheikh Hasina is a vote thief.”
Tensions prevailed in the capital after security forces invaded the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) offices on Tuesday, killing at least one person and injuring dozens more.
Two of the party’s top leaders were arrested and added to the 2,000 or so activists and sympathisers who the party claimed had been held since November 30 in an effort to thwart the march. They were all arrested on Friday on suspicion of instigating the violence.
One of the fastest-growing economies in Asia, Bangladesh, has a political atmosphere that has now alarmed Western nations as well as the United Nations.
Hasina has categorically rejected calls from the opposition to quit and organise elections under a caretaker administration, which have been made in protests around the nation.
By mid-morning on Saturday, according to a BNP spokesman, 200,000 people had registered to attend the rally. “Our main demand is Sheikh Hasina resign and parliament is dissolved and let a neutral caretaker government step in to hold a free and fair election,” spokesman Zahiruddin Swapan told AFP.
Faruq Ahmed, a spokesman for the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, disputed the statistics, claiming that the location could not accommodate more than 30,000 people.
Although there had not yet been any violence, he noted that SWAT teams, counterterrorism units, and canine squads were on alert.
