DHAKA: Bangladesh police fired rubber bullets and teargas at a group of opposition party supporters in the capital, Dhaka, on Wednesday as tension soared weeks before a general election.
Activists of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) responded to the police action by setting fire to police vans and cars, as well as several motor-bikes, according to police and media.
“Our force was attacked without any reason. They were only trying to ease the traffic flow but suddenly they were targeted,” said Masudur Rahman, a spokesman for the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
The BNP supporters were accompanying an election candidate who was picking up election nomination papers from the party’s offices in the city.
Police initially asked the group numbering more than 500 to disperse because they were creating a traffic jam but an altercation ensued and fist-fights broke out between the BNP supporters and police.
The BNP said that at least 12 of its supporters were injured. Police said at least 20 officers were hurt.
BNP Secretary-General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir denounced the police action as an “injustice”, and part of a government plot to exclude the party from the December 30 election.
General elections are invariably volatile in Bangladesh where politics has for more than two decades been dominated by rivalry between two women leaders — Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia — both of whom have been prime minister.
Hasina, who is prime minister now, and Khaleda, leader of the BNP, are both related to former national leaders. — Reuters
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