Bangladesh’s main opposition party said on Wednesday that it would keep protesting the government despite what a rights group called a “autocratic crackdown” ahead of a general election in January.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose top leadership is either imprisoned or exiled, has already stated that it will boycott the election if Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina does not resign and allow a caretaker government to oversee the poll, which is set to take place on January 7.
At least four people, including a police officer, have been killed and hundreds have been injured in violent protests across the country in recent weeks, according to police.
Two persons were injured in the capital, Dhaka, when a crude bomb exploded on Wednesday as a countrywide transport blockade called by the BNP was underway, police said.
Dozens of buses and vehicles have been set on fire over the past one month, authorities said.
Hasina, seeking her fourth straight five-year term in office, has repeatedly ruled out handing power to a caretaker government and accused the BNP of “terrorism and hooliganism”.
BNP said four people have been killed and more than 5,330 people arrested since the election was announced on Nov. 15.
Police say they have arrested only those responsible for violence.
Human Rights Watch has accused the government of targeting opposition leaders and supporters.
It said it has found evidence that security forces are responsible for using excessive force, mass arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings in a recent spate of election-related violence, based on interviews with 13 witnesses and an analysis of videos and police reports.
The government denies the accusations but it is under pressure from Western countries to hold free and fair elections.
Hasina’s arch rival and two-time premier, BNP leader Khaleda Zia, is effectively under house arrest on what her party calls trumped-up corruption charges.
