A Bangladesh Islamist party's student wing has called a countrywide strike for Sunday amid the main opposition alliance's ongoing non-stop blockade campaign that entered the 32nd day Friday.
Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, a key ally of ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia's 20-party opposition alliance, called the dawn-to-dusk shutdown protest the "killing and arrest of its leaders and activists", Xinhua news agency reported.
Shibir president Abdul Jabbar said in a press release Friday that seven Shibir leaders and activists were shot dead in the last one month.
A police spokesman did not comment on the claim of Jabbar.
Violence erupted in parts of Bangladesh after Zia called the nationwide blockade Jan 5 following her alliance being barred from holding a rally Jan 5 in capital Dhaka.
Zia and her allies have been demanding that the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina arrange an election under a non-party government.
But Hasina rejected the demand and told the opposition to wait until the next election is scheduled in 2019.
