Bangladesh: 4 killed in Dhaka as protesters set train on fire

At least four people were killed on Tuesday when unknown individuals set a passenger train in the capital of Bangladesh on fire. Among them were a mom and her young son. This happened in the middle of the political turmoil surrounding the elections on January 7.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) called for a nationwide shutdown on Tuesday in response to the attack. The BNP is waging a campaign to boycott the elections and hold a formal protest against the Election Commission’s poll schedule.

The train arson attack was the bloodiest to date in terms of victims, although being the sixth in the previous month. Early in the morning, just after the train departed the Airport Railway Station at the capital’s entry point, the miscreants set fire to three compartments of the inter-district Mohanganj Express headed for Dhaka, according to witnesses and police.

“The passengers saw the fire after the train left the Airport station, it was stopped at the next stop at Tejgaon station,” Tejgaon police station officer-in-charge Mohammad Mohsin told the media.

When the train caught fire during a hartal that the BNP called, at least four people—including a lady and her child—died. While fire department rescuers were searching inside the burned compartment, Mohsin reported that another small boy was missing and his mother was waiting outside.

According to railway officials, the locomotive master stopped the train at Tejgaon, where firefighters extinguished the fire and recovered four bodies, with the identities of the other two victims still unknown.

The country’s major opposition party was accused of “arson” and “sabotage” by the railway minister after a fire broke out early on a passenger train in the capital, killing four people—including a woman and her child.

In the absence of the ill former premier Khaleda Zia’s BNP, which has boycotted the polls on January 7 since its demands for a no-party caretaker administration to oversee the elections were not met, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ruling Awami League has emerged as the front-runner.

The Awami League is running in the election against the Jatiya Party, which is its formal opposition in parliament, as well as independent candidates, including rebels who entered the race when their party’s nomination was denied.

The incumbent party has been in power for four terms running since the December 2008 elections, but voters have no choice but to reelect it. Earlier, the Awami League said that it will support the independent, including the party’s dissident candidates.

Seven carriages derailed at Gazipur, on the outskirts of the city, last week, resulting in one passenger’s death and numerous injuries when saboteurs uprooted railway tracks on the same train on the same route.

Since late October, dozens of trucks, buses, and private vehicles have been set on fire; at least six people have died as a result of the violence.

In the midst of political turmoil, Bangladesh will send out the Army for 13 days starting on December 29 to keep the peace “in aid of civil power” prior to the general elections on January 7. The military, however, referred to it as a regular poll duty.

In the midst of ongoing political instability, the Election Commission announced the polling schedule on November 15.

The BNP has maintained that there would be no fair elections while the Awami League is in power and has called for the resignation of the current government to make room for an interim non-party neutral administration to oversee votes.

Although a “congenial atmosphere” is necessary for a peaceful election, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal previously stated that “for a long time there exist differences of opinions among political leaderships on the question of election, particularly over the institutional method of the polling.”

Awal stated that his office offered all registered political parties who were “reluctant” to participate in the upcoming polls for conversations with the Commission, but “they rejected the invitation,” implying a subliminal jab at the BNP and its allies.

The BNP participated in the 2018 elections despite having boycotted the 2014 ones, which party leaders later said was an error because massive voting manipulation and intimidation had occurred.

A statewide crackdown has resulted in the arrest of nearly 10,000 opposition leaders and activists, including BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, according to media sources; however, the BNP has stated that the number might reach 20,000.

Alamgir’s bid for bail was denied by a Dhaka court on Monday, which prevented him from leading his party before to the election that takes place next month. Since Zia is sick and may spend 17 years in prison after being found guilty in two corruption cases that her party claims were politically motivated, he has taken on a pivotal role as the party’s leader.

(With agency inputs)