Bangladesh’s opposition party’s student wing calls strike

DHAKA, Feb. 7 (NsNewsWire) — Bangladesh’s Islamist party’s student wing has called a countrywide strike for Sunday amid the main opposition alliance’s ongoing non-stop blockade campaign that entered 32nd day on Friday.

Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Bangladesh Jamaat-e- Islami party, key ally ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s 20-party opposition alliance, called the dawn-to-dusk shutdown protest the “killing and arrest of its leaders and activists.”

Shibir President Abdul Jabbar said in a press release on Friday that seven Shibir leaders and activists were shot dead in the last one month.

A police spokesman did not comment on the claim of Shibir president, reports Xinhua.

Violence erupted in parts of Bangladesh after Zia called the nationwide blockade on Jan. 5 after her alliance was barred from holding rally on Jan. 5 in capital Dhaka.

Zia and her allies have been calling on the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to arrange an election under a non-party government.

But Hasina rejected the demand and told the opposition to wait until the next election is scheduled in 2019.