Mobile courts, launched against pickets for the first time of Bangladesh.

The police cordon off a few activists of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in front of the party’s central office at Naya Paltan in Dhaka

 Mobile courts jail scores as 36-hr strike continues

                Mobile courts, launched against pickets for the first time of Bangladesh.

The mobile courts sentenced 80 people, including 58 in Dhaka, for their suspected involvement in picketing and the law enforcers arrested more than 400 people at places across the country, including 130 in the capital, till midnight while a taxicab and a minibus were set on fire at Dhanmondi and Tongi at night as the non-stop general strike continued.

            The police also arrested the BNP’s vice-chairman Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, also a former home minister, and the party chief’s adviser Hafizuddin Ahmed, a former water resources minister, when they were leading a procession at Mohakhali about 10:00am. They were taken to the Cantonment police station and were kept in the place till midnight.

            The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh Jatiya Party (Naziur) and Sammilita Ulema Mashaikh Parishad on Friday announced to enforce the general strike in protest at the government’s ‘conspiracy’ to change the constitution unilaterally and scrap the provision for the election-time caretaker government.

It was the second general strike enforced by the BNP and allies in protest at the government’s move to change the constitution and scrap the caretaker government system.

Islami Oikya Jote, led by Fazlul Haque Amini, which is the other component of the BNP-led alliance, extended its ‘full support’ for the general strike.

Some offices and apparel factories, however, remained open.

Loading and unloading of goods at jetties at the Chittagong and Mongla ports remained normal but the transport of goods to and from the ports remained suspended, port authorities said.

The Bangladesh Railway and the civil aviation authorities said that train communication and flight operations were normal.

The Supreme Court Bar Association president, Khandker Mahbub Hossain, alleged that the arrested opposition leaders and activists were being sentenced summarily in such proceedings in ‘Ayub Khan-style’, a reference to the rule of former Pakistani dictator.

Mahbub, also an adviser to the BNP chairperson, Khaleda Zia, alleged that the arrested were convicted after being denied their constitutional right to defend themselves.

Hardly any pickets could be seen elsewhere the city although at some places they made some hit-and-run explosion of crude bombs. But no injury was reported.

A group of BNP leaders and activists and the police scuffled when the party’s acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and the opposition chief whip in the parliament, Zainul Abdin Farroque, tried to bring out a procession.

About 15 BNP activists were dragged into a police van by policemen, in plainclothes and in uniform.

Some BNP men, led by the party’s standing committee member Nazrul Islam Khan, later sat on the footpath in front of the party office for hours with being cordoned off by the police.

Two crude bombs went off in front of the BNP office and another at Fakirapool in which two policemen were injured.

Six Jamaat-e-Islami men were arrested at Mirpur Section 11 about 6:15am and a mobile court jailed them or a month on charges of ‘obstructing lawmen.’ They were Amirul Momenin, 24, Al-Fatah Habibullah, 35, Jahangir Alam, 33, Hossain Ahmed, 53, Jamaluddin, 60, and Nurul Amin, 34.

The strike was peaceful at Motijheel, Gulistan, on Bangabandhu Avenue, in Supreme Court and Purana Paltan areas.

The Port city Chittagong police had arrested 31 BNP activists, including 13 women, at places in the city.

Mobile courts in Chittagong jailed 28 BNP activists for varying terms after their arrest on Sunday. The activists were also fined varying amounts.

Sixteen leaders of the BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami and Khelafat-e-Majlis were arrested when they were picketing at places in Khulna city.

In Sylhet, the police picked up 14 activists of the BNP and Jamaat from places in the city.