Explosions near BNP offices

Several bombs have gone off near BNP’s main offices at Dhaka’s Naya Paltan before the party along with its allies enforces a Bangladesh-wide shutdown on Monday.

The blasts were heard on Sunday evening but no casualties have been reported.

The hand bombs, Paltan Police Inspector Tofael Ahmed said, were thrown at an area where there was no crowd.

“The explosion took place next to Ananda Bhaban around 7pm right after a press briefing at BNP’s headquarters,” he told bdnews24.com.

Security in the area was being reinforced, he said.

Additional policemen, prison vans, water cannons and riot cars were surrounding the party office. Leaders and activists who sought to enter the office were faced with police questioning.

Traffic, however, remained usual in the street the building overlooked.

“Police are alert in keeping the situation stable here,” said inspector Tofael.

The BNP-led 20-Party alliance called a dawn-to-dusk general strike for Monday against last week’s Amendment to the Constitution which now allowed MPs to remove top judges.

The programme follows BNP ally Jamaat-e-Islami’s 24-hour strikes on Thursday and Sunday, called to mount pressure for release of their top leader and convicted war criminal Delwar Hossain Sayedee.

The Appellate Division in its verdict reduced Sayedee’s punishment for looting, murder, arson genocide during Liberation War from death to life in prison until death on Wednesday.