A war in which violence happens, even sabotage on rail tracks or hurling of bombs that burn people to death or defacement.
In an interview with BBC Bangla service on Tuesday, the BNP leader was asked by BBC journalist Qadir Kallol -- there is so much violence, fish plates are being dismantled on rail tracks, bombs are being hurled!
Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury shot back -- "Is this something new in Bangladesh? Has it not happened before?"
And then he went to pose a counter question.
"Does this not happen when there is a war? Don't you see the Western powers are killing so many innocent civilians in the war in Afghanistan? Don't you see children getting killed? Don't you see women getting killed?"
The BNP and its allies have been enforcing back-to-back transport blockades over the past fortnight.
This is to push for holding the next parliament polls under a non-party caretaker -- and not under an 'all-party' interim government installed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina which the BNP and its allies have refused to join.