Bangladesh cuts power to opposition leader’s office as strike protests continue
Electric supply and internet disconnected at opposition BNP offices as shipping minister reportedly advocates starving its leader Begum Khaleda Zia to death as tensions spike
Bangladesh authorities on Saturday cut power to opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia’s office in an apparent bid to force her to call off a crippling anti-government transport blockade.
Local television showed footage of a technician from a state-run power utility climbing a ladder and cutting the line outside Zia’s office, where she has been holed up since the protests began early in January.
“We got permission from police,” the technician told reporters.
Media reports said internet and satellite television connections to her office were also severed.
Even the food provided to you by your party officials will not reach your room. You’ll have to die there without food
There was no official comment from police or the power company.
Shamsuddin Dider, a spokesman for Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), told reporters the 69-year-old leader was “shocked and surprised” by the move.
He said the mobile phone network around the office had also been jammed.
The power line was cut just hours after a government minister reportedly threatened to sever the office’s electrical supply and force Zia to starve to death if she did not call off the nationwide transport blockade.
“Even the food provided to you by your party officials will not reach your room. You’ll have to die there without food,” Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan told a rally late on Friday, according to the local newspaper.
Zia has been confined in her office in Dhaka’s upmarket Gulshan district for weeks after threatening to rally her supporters against the government of bitter rival Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed on January 5, the first anniversary of a disputed general election.
Her confinement coincided with the death of her son in Malaysia earlier this month. His demise prompted tens of thousands of mourners to turn out on Tuesday in a massive show of support for the embattled former premier.
While holed up, Zia has called a nationwide blockade of roads, railways and waterways, triggering deadly unrest that has left at least 40 dead and nearly 800 vehicles firebombed or damaged.
She also called a 72-hour strike from Sunday, despite nationwide high-school examinations involving about 1.5 million students.
Zia wants Hasina, her rival of nearly three decades, to call fresh elections after last year’s controversial polls, which opposition parties boycotted on the grounds they would be rigged.
The boycott meant most members of the 300-seat parliament were returned unopposed, handing Hasina another five years in power.
Zia denies the BNP and its Islamist allies were responsible for fire bombings and has demanded the release of opposition officials and leaders detained over the violence.
Hasina has accused Zia of trying to trigger “anarchy” and ordered the security agencies to hunt down the protesters.
On Saturday an elite security force arrested Rizvi Ahmed, a top BNP leader, in Dhaka after he was accused of ordering the fire bombing of vehicles from a hideout.
The EU, the Bangladesh’s biggest export destination, has urged the Hasina government and the opposition to hold talks and resolve the crisis.
