Polling booths were set on fire in Bangladesh on the eve of Sunday’s general elections, hours after four people were killed in a suspected arson attack on a commuter train.
This came as Bangladesh’s main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, started a 48-hour general strike on Saturday, calling on people to boycott the vote because it says the government of incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina cannot guarantee its fairness.
Police on Saturday said unidentified arsonists set fire to at least five primary schools, including four polling stations.
They were investigating fires in Gazipur, on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka, suspected to have been set in the middle of the night by those aiming to disrupt the elections, which the main opposition party has pledged to boycott.
“We have intensified patrolling and remain on high alert,” said Gazipur police chief Kazi Shafiqul Alam.
The election commission has asked authorities to increase security around polling stations.
Arsonists also attacked polling booths in the northeastern districts of Moulvibazar and Habiganj, police said, with similar incidents reported elsewhere in the past two days.
Police in the coastal district of Khulna arrested two people on Thursday night accused of trying to set fire to a school, which serve as voting stations. The following day, another bid to set fire to a primary school nearby was averted, said Saidur Rahman, police chief of the district.
The Khaleda Zia-led BNP, and numerous other opposition parties, have boycotted the elections, saying they are intended to solidify the rule of Prime Minister Hasina.
Hasina, 76, is assured of a fourth consecutive term in Sunday’s vote, which observers have criticised as one-sided.
On Saturday morning, a small group of BNP supporters marched across Dhaka’s Shahbagh neighbourhood, calling on people to join the strike. Another rally by about 200 left-wing protesters took place outside the National Press Club to denounce the election.
“The government is again playing with fire. The government has resorted to its old tactics of holding a one-sided election,” said Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, a senior BNP official.
Deadly train fire
Meanwhile, police apprehended seven members of the opposition party, accused of an alleged pre-election arson attack on a commuter train on Friday, in which four people were killed.
Among those arrested in the capital early on Saturday was Nabiullah Nabi, a senior BNP official, along with six other party activists.
“Nabi funded and masterminded the attack,” Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesperson Faruk Hossain told the AFP news agency by phone.
Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said the timing of the incident showed an “absolute intention to hinder the festivity, safety and security of the democratic processes of the country”.
