Last day of hartal ends peacefully

The last day of the two-day nationwide shutdown enforced by Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami passed off in a relaxed mood as a significant number of vehicles and shops come into the business Thursday.
During the hartal hours, government and non-government offices, business organisations, factories, industries and other functional bodies continued their operations like every other working day ignoring the call of shutdown (hartal).
Educational institutions were also found opening their gates as students went to their schools to receive free textbooks defying hartal enforced by the Jamaat protesting death sentence to its senior leader ATM Azharul Islam in a war crimes case.
Vehicular movement was less than usual in the morning but the number went up sharply in the afternoon, causing traffic congestion at various intersections of the city. It was also found that buses of the capital's adjacent districts like Gazipur, Manikganj, Narayanganj, Narsingdi and Munshiganj continued their operation. A good number of private cars and microbuses were also seen plying  the city streets.
Talking to the FE in front of Azimpur Girls School and College, car owner Sirajul Islam said that he came to the school with his family from Jatrabari to receive free textbooks.
 "I followed scrawl of the local television channels from the early hours before taking car to the streets amid shutdown. But I didn't find any incident of violence in the city," he added.
No major incident was, however, reported during the hartal hours in the city as heavy contingents of police and Rapid Action Battalion members were deployed in different parts of the capital to avert any untoward incident.
Besides, plainclothes police with cameras were put on alert at a number of strategic points in the city to identify the troublemakers during the shutdown.
The only reported incident was that the pickets in a brisk procession torched a bus, which was parked in Gabtoli Police Box area at about 10:15am. But no one was hurt in the arson attack as there was no passenger in the vehicle.
Officer-in-Charge of Darus Salam Police Station Rafiqul Islam told the FE that the pickets also exploded several bombs in the area to create panic among the people who came out of their houses for work and other purposes.
 "We also recovered three unexploded petrol bombs from the spot," he added.
Besides, the pro-hartal activists brought out quick processions at Madartek and Chalkbazar in the city and blasted few bombs before their immediate retreat.
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