BANGLADESH

Small, individual investors on a hunger strike have demonstrated overnight at Motijheel in the capital for stock market stability.

Threatening to fast to their death since Sunday from morning, they say they will not break their fast unless prime minister Sheikh Hasina reassures them.

"We'll not break our fast until the prime minister or her representative gives an assurance to maintain stability in the stock market," Bangladesh Capital Market Investors' Unity Council president Mizanur Rashid Chowdhury told reporters in the afternoon on Sunday.

They began the hunger strike with the start of the day's trading on Dhaka Stock Exchange. Many of the protesting small investors wore white scarf as a symbol of burial cloth to convey the message that they are dead and buried.

Jatiya Party chairman Hussein Muhammad Ershad, BNP leader Abdul Moyeen Khan, Communist Party of Bangladesh central leader Sazzad Zahir Chandan, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal president A S M Abdur Rob and general secretary Abdul Malek Ratan, and Bangladesh Jatiya Party chairman Andalib Rahman Partha came to speak to the demonstrators.

Ershad urged the investors to put off their demonstration, saying he would convey their message to the prime minister.

He also demanded exemplary punishment to 'those behind the fall'.

BNP leader Moyen Khan expressed his solidarity with the protestors.

"The share market sees fall whenever Awami League comes to power. It happened earlier, and this time again," he said and added that his party would compensate the investors once they came to power.

"Those behind the crash will be tried," he said.

Rob said, "Going by the situation, it doesn't look like there exists any government worth the name."

Earlier, Communist Party of Bangladesh central leader Sazzad Zahir Chandan also announced party's solidarity with the protestors.

"We'll do whatever is needed for the investors," he said.

The members of the Bangladesh Capital Market Investors' Council began their hunger strike in front of the DSE in the morning on Sunday as share prices continued to sink right since the opening of the week's trading. Traffic on the street in front of the DSE came to a grinding halt around 2:45pm due to the demonstration.

Sazzad Hossain, joint secretary of the council, told that they would fast unless a circular on the tax cut decisions taken on Wednesday was published.

The market regulator, Securities and Exchanges Commission, held talks with stakeholders on Wednesday, following investors' agitation over the last few days in protest against the slump in the market.

At the end of a meeting with the National Board of Revenue, SEC chief M Khairul Hossain said the NBR had agreed to provide income tax rebate on stock market investment, lower taxes on mutual funds and also halve the current 0.10 percent tax at source on stock market brokerage commission.

Of the 263 issues traded on the DSE on Sunday, 250 declined, only 11 advanced and two remained unchanged.

The DSE general index plummeted 181.31 points or 3.25 percent to 5387.04 points. The turnover stood at Tk 2.58 billion.