Editorial
Hartal eve violence
All blame lies with the political parties
AT least 12 vehicles were torched in the capital, a train compartment set ablaze in Mymensingh and a police station bombed in Rajshahi preceding the latest nationwide shutdown.
Hartals called by the opposition have been getting increasingly violent over recent weeks. So much so, that the violence is no longer limited to strike hours and even affects bodies out of the purview of strikes such as media vehicles and ambulances. Violence often starts the night before, and as we have seen in the case of this latest 36-hour hartal, even the day before -- which also happened to be the country's Independence Day.
While people expect trouble during hartals and take the possible precautions, on regular days when they venture out of their homes they are taken completely unawares by the violence on the streets and against public and private property on the eve of a hartal. Since December of last year when the frequency of shutdowns increased, every hartal has been violent and preceded by violence, leaving several dead and hundreds injured, not to mention the damage to vehicles and property.
The leader of the opposition has called on her party high-ups, lawmakers and city leaders to ensure their greater presence and make the hartals a success. One wonders what the opposition has gained from calling these hartals -- whether in their demand for the release of opposition leaders, stopping the government's ham-handed treatment of the opposition, restoring the caretaker government system or calling for the resignation of the government outright. Instead, it has at the least tried the patience of the people and, at its worst, caused death and widespread damage.
Not only will no headway be made out of the current political impasse in this manner, but the opposition will also lose whatever credibility it has with the people. All responsibility of hartal violence on the eve of or during a shutdown and its consequences lies with the political parties. We condemn these shutdowns, and the violence that goes with them, which are taking a multifaceted toll on the nation -- not to mention the feared disruption of the upcoming HSC exams -- and call for an end to this seemingly endless and obviously meaningless saga of political intolerance and conflict.
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