BANGLADESH

The BNP has shortened the route for its public procession in Dhaka on Monday.

"The route of the procession has been cut short taking Khaleda Zia's safety and the environment into consideration," BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir announced after a meeting of the highest policymaking forum, National Standing Committee.

The procession will start at 2pm from the party headquarters in Naya Paltan and parade down Kakrail, Shantinagar, Malibagh, Mouchak before ending at Maghbazar. The previous route would have gone past Maghbazar to Bangla Motor.

The BNP chairperson chaired the one-hour long meeting of her party's senior advisors at her Gulshan office after clashes between police and opposition supporters during countrywide antigovernment demonstrations left at least four people dead.

Four were killed as police opened fire on BNP processions in Laxmipur and Chandpur earlier in the day.

Committee members, R A Gani, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Moudud Ahmed, M Shamsul Islam, Mahbubur Rahman, M K Anwar, Jamir Uddin Sircar, A S M Hannan Shah, Rafiqul Islam Mia, Abdul Moin Khan, Mirza Abbas, Nazrul Islam Khan, Gayeswar Chandra Roy and acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir were present at the meeting.

Metropolitan BNP president Sadeque Hossain Khoka and chairperson's adviser Osman Faruk were there on special invitation.

BNP's Dhaka procession was rescheduled from Sunday to Monday after police declared section 144, a ban on public gathering and processions, on that day.

Fakhrul called on the government to cooperate in the procession. "We hope the government will come to its senses and it will not impede our peaceful protest programmes," he said.

He warned that the government would have to take the responsibility if the processions were barred.

"On Monday, there will be processions in Chittagong, Rajshahi, Sylhet, Bogra, Joypurhat and Habiganj as well. The procession in Khulna will be held later since the police ban there," he added.

"The government's tyrannical face has been revealed to the people through these police attacks on ordinary people," he said.

In reply to a query, he said the party's programmes to protest the police attacks would be announced after Monday.