DHAKA,Bangladesh, 20 Aug: Police in northeastern Bangladesh used batons and tear gas to disperse opposition activists amid a political dispute over who would oversee the next election, which is expected to be held in January, police and activists said Sunday.
\nAround 300 people were injured in the clash on Saturday evening, including some with bullets, the country\u2019s leading Bengali-language daily newspaper Prothom Alo reported, adding that police had opened fire on supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.
\nThe United News of Bangladesh agency said as many as 150 people including police officers were hurt in the clashes, which occurred in Habiganj town.
\nG.K. Gaus, a local leader in Zia\u2019s party, said chaos broke out after thousands of party supporters began marching through the streets. Police confronted them and ordered them to stop.
\nPalash Ranjan Dey, a police official in Habiganj district, said police were forced to take action after opposition activists suddenly attacked them while trying to break a police barricade.
\nZia\u2019s party has been demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the transfer of power to a non-party caretaker government until the next general election. Zia\u2019s party and its allies accuse Hasina of vote rigging in 2018 and the party has been protesting over who should oversee the next general election.
\nHasina hopes to return to power for a fourth consecutive term and says the election should be held under her government\u2019s supervision as specified in the constitution.
\nThe United States, the European Union and the United Nations have been urging all sides to avoid violence and work toward holding a credible election. AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DHAKA,Bangladesh, 20 Aug: Police in northeastern Bangladesh used batons and tear gas to disperse opposition activists amid a political dispute over who would oversee the next election, which is expected to be held in January, police and activists said Sunday. Around 300 people were injured in the clash on Saturday evening, including some with bullets, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-222670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}