Bangladesh opposition to organize protest rallies tomorrow

Police said they suspected the miscreants used gun powders or petrol bomb to torch the bus while the wounded passengers said the packed vehicle caught fire after “something” landed in it from outside.  

The mass circulation Samakal and several other newspapers said of the 21 casualties, seven died of burn wounds caused by petrol bombs or arson in vehicles during the past three days when hundreds others, mostly ordinary people, were injured.  

“We condemn this politics (of destruction), so should all do who love Bangladesh,” the Daily Star newspaper wrote in a front-page editorial while the Prothom Alo carried another front-page commentary questioning “what crime the ordinary people committed”.

Meanwhile, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed yesterday said the plans for the scheduled January 5 polls could be revised if the feuding major parties reached a consensus on election time as “everything is possible if they reached a settlement in the peoples' interest.”

But he said the commission was still proceeding with the plans to hold the elections on January 5.  

Hasina, who also heads the AL, yesterday, told a party meeting that the polls would be held in due time and urged the countrymen to cast their votes for continued democratic process.

According to media reports, political violence this year have so far killed 348 people.