BANGLADESH

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) will enforce a daylong general strike across the country on Thursday to protest against the increase in fuel prices.

BNP's acting secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Tuesday announced the programme at a press conference at the party's Naya Paltan headquarters.

He said they decided to call the strike also against soaring prices of daily commodities, deteriorating law and order, the government's failure to tackle the capital market and detention of opposition activists.

Leaders of the party also said alliance partners Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh Jatiya Party and Islami Okya Jote would separately announce their plans to enforce the strike on the day.

The decision of calling the strike followed a late Monday emergency meeting of the BNP with opposition leader Khaleda Zia in the chair at her Gulshan office in the wake of fuel price hike and the violent clashes between Jamaat-e-Islami activists and the police.

Jamaat activists demanding release of their senior leaders on Monday clashed with police in Dhaka and elsewhere leading to the arrests of dozen of its activists.

The Jamaat activists set fire to several vehicles in Dhaka during the melee as the security officials tried to prevent them from marching through the streets.

Thursday's strike is going to be the seventh general strike called by BNP during the latest rule of the Awami League.

BNP and its political partners had enforced a 48-hour general strike on July 6, 7 and 8 demanding the cancellation of the 15th constitutional amendment and reinstatement of the caretaker government system.

Their first general strike programme was held on June 27, 2010 after the government came into power in January 2009.