The four-nation BCIM Car Rally, which reached here today, has been hit by a nationwide strike called by the Islamic party alliance.
The 3,028-km rally, which was to leave for Sylhet early morning tomorrow, has now been deferred till the evening, fearing violence in the Bangladesh capital and adjoining districts.
"We don't want to take any chance along the 250-km route to Sylhet. The entire schedule will have to be altered. The convoy will now leave the capital around 5pm," Bangladeshi contingent's country leader Mohammad Delwar Hossain said.
The Kolkata-Kunming rally of 80 participants from four countries in 20 vehicles were to leave Dhaka at 8.45 local time tomorrow and was scheduled to reach Sylhet at 1.30pm.
Thanks to the delay, the visit to 'Jatiya Shahid Minar' (national martyr's monument) has been dropped from itinerary.
Six people have been killed and over 1,000 including journalists have been injured in violence across the country in the past two days.
In the latest incident, two people were killed and 30 including 18 policemen injured in a gunfight between Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Chhatra Shibir activists and law enforcers in Pabna during the Jamaat-backed eight-hour hartal (shutdown) in the district today.
There have been widespread tension in the country over the alleged anti-Islamic blog posts by Ahmed Rajib Haider, who was hacked to death last week near his home in Dhaka.
In recent weeks, Haider and fellow bloggers had launched huge protests demanding a ban on the largest Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami, and the execution of its leaders for alleged war crimes in the 1971 independence conflict with Pakistan.
Bangladesh has been on the boil since February 5, the day when radical Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami's assistant secretary general Abdul Quader Mollah was sentenced to life in prison for rape, killing and genocide in 1971.
The decision has triggered mass protests across the country.
