| Daily Times - Site Edition | Tuesday, November 14, 2006 |
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One dead in riot as Bangladesh police battle protesters
DHAKA: A man was killed and several people were injured on Monday after Bangladesh riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse protesters in Dhaka. Viewing the growing scale of violence, Bangladesh’s interim government said it would hold talks with main political parties to end a standoff over the chief election commissioner that threatens January’s national polls.
The clash came on the second day of a nationwide transport blockade organised by opposition parties to force the resignation of an election official accused of trying to rig national polls in January.
Emdad Hossain, a doctor at the emergency department of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said police handed over the body of the dead man, who appeared to have been run over by a vehicle.
A senior Dhaka police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the protester died under the wheels of a police van and that at least 10 others were treated at the hospital. Twenty more, including a former lawmaker, were taken to Dhaka’s Shomorita Hospital with non-life threatening injuries, a member of the medical staff said.
The main opposition Awami League and its allies have accused chief election commissioner MA Aziz of drawing up a voters’ list that contains 10 million fake voters.
The opposition, which argues he favours the outgoing administration led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has threatened to boycott the polls unless a string of demands, including his sacking by the interim administration, are met.
Thousands of opposition supporters chanting “Sack Aziz and save the country” again staged demonstrations and blocked highways nationwide, said police. A mob enforcing the transport blockade smashed at least 11 buses at Savar, 40 kilometres west of Dhaka, the private UNB agency reported.
Meanwhile, the BNP announced its own protests for Tuesday. “We will hold protest marches and rallies all over the country to protest the anarchy that the Awami League has created,” said party spokesman Imran Saleh Prince. The caretaker government said it was working to try to end the deadlock. “We’ve decided to hold talks with all the political parties separately to find a solution to the present situation,” interim cabinet member Mahbubul Alam told reporters.
The talks would feature the “entire gamut of issues including the reconstitution of the election commission”, he said.
At least 25 people died in four days of violent clashes between rival party activists from October 27 when the BNP-led government’s five-year mandate expired.
The clashes began when the opposition staged mass protests that led former Supreme Court judge K.M. Hasan to decline to continue as head of a caretaker government in late October. The opposition accused him of being politically biased in favour of the BNP.
“We’ve decided to hold talks with all the political parties separately... to find a solution to the present situation,” interim cabinet member Mahbubul Alam told reporters.
The talks would feature the “entire gamut of issues including the reconstitution of the election commission,” he said. agencies