Business as usual in Ctg despite hartal

Except for some educational institutions and a few business establishments that remained closed, the local population chose to ignore the hartal call. The roads were filled with all modes of transport and almost all business and office activities were conducted normally during the hartal hours.

The GCDAC called the hartal from 6:00am to 2:00pm to realise demands for upgrading the infrastructure of Chittagong as commercial capital, improvement in law and order, the immediate installation of a third bridge on the river Karnaphuli, and preference to Moheshkhali of Cox's Bazar as the site for a proposed deep-water port.

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Although supposedly called for the common good of the Chittagong population, the hartal failed to gain the support of the locals, reportedly due to a lack of coordination on the part of the organisers and a lack of motivation on the part of the local population.

Another factor in the failure of the locals to heed the call for hartal was that GCDAC had previously withdrawn many hartal calls at the eleventh hour, resulting in a lack of confidence among the locals that the hartal would be carried through as announced.

After the hartal, GCDAC held a rally at the Shaheed Minar in the afternoon and announced a fresh agitation programme including a 12-hour hartal in greater Chittagong on June 26 next year.

The rally, presided over by GCDAC chairman SM Jamal Uddin, set April 30, 2004 as the deadline for the upgrading of Chittagong's commercial infrastructure.

The rally announced a token hunger-strike on January 1, a human-chain on March 25, and a siege of the Dhaka-Chittagong road at the city gate area on April 22, 2004.

GCDAC also threatened to besiege the state ministers and MPs from Chittagong and lay siege to different administrative offices to press home its demands.