Jamaat-e-Islami yesterday called a countrywide daylong hartal for Sunday, nearly an hour after Hefajat-e Islam withdrew its hartal declared earlier for the same day. A key component in the BNP-led 18-party alliance, Jamaat called the hartal in protest at the verdict that sentenced its leader Muhammad Kamaruzzaman to death for involvement in war crimes.
Jamaat announced the hartal in a statement at 6:30pm, rejecting the verdict delivered by an international crimes tribunal.
Ashraf Ali Nizampuri, Hefajat's literature and cultural affairs secretary, told The Daily Star at about 5:30pm that they had withdrawn the hartal on the
instructions of its chief Shah Ahmed Shafi.
About the reason for the withdrawal, the Hefajat leader said the hartal would disadvantage many of their men who had suffered injuries in clashes with police and were undergoing treatment at different hospitals.
He noted that they would also be trying to find out "the activists who were made to disappear" during the clashes.
Asked the number of their casualties during a police drive at Motijheel on May 5 and 6, he said their district-level chiefs would prepare a list of the "martyred" and the wounded activists.
Meanwhile, the two-day countrywide hartal called by the 18-party alliance ended last evening without occasioning much violence.
However, at a press conference at its Nayapaltan head office, the BNP last night claimed that three of its activists were killed during the hartal, one each in Chapainawabganj, Feni and Comilla.
Our correspondents in the districts did not have any such information as of
the filing of this report at 8:00pm.
Talking to The Daily Star, many people — especially day labourers and roadside vendors — aired their grievances about the BNP-called general strike.
"In the last two-day hartal, I could not earn even one-fourth of what I normally do," said a vendor who sells burgers near the BNP
central office .
