The BNP and 32 other like-minded opposition parties staged a procession of showdowns Friday in different parts of the capital, by way of the first joint programme in what is being billed as a collective movement to take down the incumbent government and set the stage for free and fair elections.
They also separately announced sit-in programmes across the country on January 11 as their next course of action, to press home their 10-point demand, including the resignation of the current government and formation of a polls-time caretaker government.
Meanwhile, the leaders and activists of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami locked in clashes with police in the city’s Malibagh, Paltan and Motijheel areas, as they tried to bring out processions as part of the simultaneous movement.
Police dispersed the Jamaat leaders and activists by lobbing teargas shells and firing rubber bullets, leaving at least 10 people injured. Police also arrested some leaders and activists of the Islamist party.
Read: Main demand of BNP’s 10 points is fall of govt: Mosharraf
BNP brought out a massive procession from in front of the party’s Nayapaltan area around 3:30pm. It ended at Moghbazar after parading different roads through Bijoynagar, Kakrail, Shantinagar and Malibagh intersections.
In a brief address before the procession commenced, BNP standing committee member Khandaker Mosharrf Hossain, who has been acting as the party's main spokesman since the December 9 arrest of secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Alamgir, announced a 4-hour sit-in programme—from 10am to 2pm--across the country for January 11.
In the capital, he said their party will observe the programme in front of their Nayapaltan central office.