Staff Reporter 
Rtnn: The BNP and allied parties are set to initiate a new 48-hour road-rail-waterway blockade across Bangladesh, commencing from Sunday morning, to protest against the recently unveiled schedule for the upcoming national election by the Election Commission.

The announcement was made by Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, Senior Joint Secretary General of the party, during a virtual press briefing on Thursday afternoon.

He said the blockade will begin at 6am on Sunday and end at 6am on Tuesday.

Rizvi said the blockade is also meant for mounting pressure on the government to quit, hold the next election under a non-party neutral government and release party leaders and activists, including its secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

He said other opposition parties, who have long been carrying out the simultaneous movement with BNP, will also observe a similar program.

 The fresh program was announced around three hours before the end of the opposition’s hartal which will end at 6pm on Thursday.

Rizvi thanked the country’s people and the opposition leaders and activists for making their hartal a success.

 The opposition parties observed blockades in eight phases to mount pressure on the Awami League government to quit power and hold the next election under a non-partisan administration.

BNP and like-minded parties enforced a 24-hour road-rail-waterway blockade across the country starting from Wednesday morning and a daylong hartal on Thursday that will end at 6pm Thursday.

They also observed a nationwide dawn-to-dusk hartal on October 29 in protest against the attacks on BNP’s grand rally at Naya Paltan that ended amid the incidents of torching vehicles and clashes, leaving three people dead.

Half an hour into the start of BNP's much-talked-about grand rally at Naya Paltan on October 28, BNP leaders and workers locked in a clash with the ruling party activists and police at Kakrail. The violent clashes soon spread around Naya Paltan, foiling the rally midway.