5 killed in violence as BNP enforces blockade in Bangladesh

Five persons were killed in violence in Bangladesh as the main opposition BNP today enforced a 48-hour nationwide transport blockade to press its demand for postponing the general election scheduled for January 5 amid a tense face-off over the interim government.
Activists of the BNP and its fundamentalist ally Jamaat-e- Islami exploded crude bombs, uprooted railway tracks and torched buses, cars and trains after the government rejected their call to postpone the polls.
A leader of Jubo League, the youth front of the Awami League, was lynched by BNP and Jamaat activists in southwestern Satkhira, police said. Mahmudul Hasan, 30, was attacked while he was heading to his shop.

A rickshaw-puller died when he was caught in a crossfire between Jamaat activists and police at Laksham in southwestern Comilla district while an unidentified man was killed in clashes between opposition activists and police in northwestern Sirajganj.
Two persons died in violence that occurred overnight after the Election Commission announced the poll schedule. Police said a youth died when a crude bomb went off in Comilla and a rickshaw-puller was killed in Dhaka.
The violence forced authorities to postpone national university and primary school certificate examinations scheduled for today.

The Communist Party of Bangladesh too announced today that it would boycott the polls. "Without consensus among political parties regarding the poll-time government, no election can be acceptable," CPB president Mujahidul Islam Selim told reporters.

Railway links between Dhaka and the southeastern port city of Chittagong and northeastern Sylhet were cut as opposition activists uprooted train tracks in Brahmanbaria. They also set on fire several compartments of a stationary train at Iswardy.
Bus services were stopped after the opposition coalition announced last night it would blockade highways, railways and waterways to protest the "election of farce".
Authorities called out paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh personnel to guard the capital and other cities.
The Awami League and the BNP are at loggerheads over the system for conducting the polls. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has formed a multi-party interim set-up while the BNP wants the election to be held under a non-party interim government.