DHAKA, Nov. 21, Reuter: Bomb attacks wounded nine people on Saturday during a general strike in Bangladesh aimed at forcing the resignation of President Hossain Mohammad Ershad.
Several homemade bombs filled with explosives and metal fragments went off in the capital, Dhaka, near a squad of paramilitary police guarding streets during ‘the stoppage.
Police said eight of those injured ‘were policemen, including a paramilitary major. Some bomb splinters as the 48hour strike started at 600 a.m.
Shops, offices, banks and factories were closed. Airlines did not fly ‘on domestic routes and only few international flights operated.
Officials said rail services across the country were cancelled after at least five trains were derailed when protesters displaced the tracks. Casualty reports were not available.
Strikers also set fire to several vehicles in Dhaka the strike was called by 21 opposition parties in a national campaign to force out Ershad, a former army general who has ruled Bangladesh for nearly six years.
Work stoppages and rallies halted life in Bangladesh last week but Western diplomats said Saturday’s strike in Dhaka, a city of four million people, looked much more grave and tense,
“It is almost like a ghost city”, ‘one diplomat said.
He said demonstrators attacked a diplomat’s car in fashionable Gulshan residential district, no one was hurt but two vehicles were damaged.
Hundreds of government employees trudged several miles between their homes and offices but protesters turned many of them back.
Strikes also crippled Khulna and the port of Chittagong. Nearly 75,000 dock workers stayed at home, according to district officials.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 27, 1987
