As Bangladesh prepares for its nationwide elections, the nation’s police introduced on Saturday, January sixth that unidentified people set hearth to at the least 5 elementary colleges serving as polling facilities.
According to Reuters, the police are investigating the fires on the outskirts of the capital metropolis, however it’s suspected that these answerable for disrupting the upcoming elections deliberately set the faculties ablaze at midnight.
The foremost opposition occasion, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which has referred to as for a boycott of the elections for the second time within the final three rounds, alleges {that a} occasion led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is making an attempt to legitimize a rigged election and safe a fourth consecutive time period as prime minister.
In the earlier parliamentary elections in Bangladesh in 2019, the ruling occasion secured 96% of the votes, paving the best way for Hasina’s third time period as prime minister.
Hasina has been in energy since 2009 and faces criticism for human rights violations and suppressing opposition. She has been accused of scary anti-government protests by the opposition occasion, which shook the capital metropolis of Dhaka on the finish of October and resulted within the deaths of at the least 10 folks within the South Asian nation.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia – an ardent rival of Hasina – has urged residents to chorus from taking part within the elections and has referred to as for a two-day strike on Saturday and Sunday.
While the Bangladesh police have introduced efforts to keep up safety, they reported related deliberate fires throughout the nation previously two days.
On Friday night time, the police arrested two folks within the coastal area of Khulna for making an attempt to set hearth to a faculty. The native residents additionally thwarted one other try and set hearth to an elementary faculty constructing in the identical space.
In a separate incident on Saturday night time, at the least 4 folks together with a baby misplaced their lives in a suspected practice hearth, and eight others have been injured.
Last month, throughout a nationwide strike organized by the opposition, protesters set a practice on hearth, ensuing within the deaths of 4 folks from the following hearth.
As violence escalates on the eve of Bangladesh’s elections, the nation’s police have said that roughly 800,000 police and auxiliary personnel are anticipated to guard polling facilities on Monday. The navy, navy, and air drive are additionally deployed throughout the nation.
The ruling occasion in Bangladesh has accused members of the opposition of attempting to disrupt the elections by creating “a reign of terror on harmless folks,” however opponents declare they haven’t any confidence within the present authorities’s potential to carry free and honest elections.