Blockade campaigners torch five vehicles in Dhaka, Chittagong and Gazipur

Blockade supporters have torched at least five vehicles in Dhaka, Chittagong and Gazipur, leaving several people injured.

Police, however, said no one was injured in Monday's incidents.

The BNP-led alliance has been going ahead with a violent street agitation since Jan 5 that has left over 100 people dead, mostly in arson and fire-bombing.

Over a thousand vehicles have been burnt during this period and the economy suffered Tk 1.2 trillion losses, according to official estimates.

In Chittagong, blockade campaigners exploded crude bombs and vandalised several vehicles.

They set alight a bus at CEPZ intersection but the fire was doused quickly, Agrabad fire service control room officer Shahidur Rahman said.

Around the same time, blockade supporters hurled several petrol bombs at a passenger bus and exploded crude bombs at the Bahaddarhat intersection, witnesses said.

They said five vehicles were damaged.

Chittagong Metropolitan Police’s Deputy Commissioner Sheikh Shariful Islam said police officials, deployed near the spot, fired several shots but could not arrest the perpetrators.

In Dhaka, masked assailants exploded crude bombs before torching two cars at Bijoynagar in the afternoon but no one was injured, police said.

A witness said a group of about 10 young men first exploded handmade bombs in front of the private cars.

“Drivers and passengers quickly got out of the cars,” Al-Amin said. “The attackers smashed the cars before torching them.”

Around noon, a bus was set on fire in Gazipur’s Sreepur with ‘gun powder’, injuring several passengers.

“Miscreants sprinkled gun powder and set alight a Barmi-bound bus," said Sreepur Fire Service Station Officer Tasarraf Hossain. 

He said several passengers were injured when they tried to scamper off the bus.

They had been taken to local health complex.