Ganajagaran Mancha announces fresh protest plans in Bangladesh

The Ganajagaran Mancha will take out a procession towards the home ministry with symbolic coffins and hold a rally at Shahbagh.

The secular platform is protesting against the murder of a publisher and another attack on three others.

It announced these fresh plans for protest after having observed a half-day countrywide shutdown on Tuesday.

Traffic resumed in the capital around noon after the Ganajagaran Mancha activists moved off the streets.

Its spokesperson Imran H Sarker said they would march towards the home ministry on Thursday and hold rally at Shahbagh the next day.

Faisal Arefin Dipan, owner of ‘Jagriti Prokashony’, was found hacked to death at Shahbagh on Saturday evening, hours after an attack on ‘Suddhoswar’ publication’s Lalmatia office that left its publisher Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury Tutul and two writers injured.

Militant group Ansar Al Islam claimed responsibility for the attacks on Twitter but police say they suspect Ansarullah Bangla Team.

Sarker apologised for causing problems to the JSC examinees as the Mancha strike pushed back Tuesday’s test by four hours.

Mancha activists took to the streets in Dhaka and elsewhere from the morning, stopping traffic.

A three-kilometre long tailback could be seen on the Dhaka-Aricha Highway.

Savar circle Additional Superintendent of Police Kazi Ashraful Azim said there were no reports of any untoward incident.

Traffic was thin on Dhaka's streets as well.

Ganajagaran Mancha originated in 2013. It demands maximum punishment for 1971 'war criminals' and a ban on religious parties like Jamaat-e-Islami.

Mancha activist blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider was hacked to death a few days after the movement started.

Several other bloggers and online activists, who supported the movement, have been killed by suspected Islamist radicals.