AL calls dawn-to-dusk hartal on June 28

The decision to enforce the general strike from 6:00am to 6:00pm came from a presidium meeting at the major opposition party's Dhanmondi office yesterday.

AL President and Leader of the Opposition Sheikh Hasina chaired the meeting.

The party had enforced a hartal in protest against the law and order slide on June 12 that coincided with the placing of the national budget in parliament.

The presidium bitterly criticised the proposed budget terming it 'anti-poor' and 'undemocratic'.

The BNP-Jamaat coalition has imposed an additional tax of TK 5,000 crore on the poor that will affect the economy seriously, it observed.

"It exposed the anti-people face of the government."

The government has sapped the roots of democracy by imposing tax on election candidates, the presidium observed.

"It will allow only the rich to contest polls in future and take political offices."

The meeting came down heavily on what it termed 'widespread violence and free fall of law and order'.

A wave of killing, rape, money extortion and other acts of crime under the present government has unnerved the people, it said.

The presidium members alleged that the government was in the thick of killing AL poll rivals in a well-orchestrated way.

"The killing of former party lawmaker Mamtaz Uddin Ahmed in Natore and attack on Mujibul Haq in Comilla is part of the government blueprint," they alleged.