Four dead in Bangladesh opposition vote protest

DHAKA - Bangladesh opposition supporters blocked roads and ripped up railway tracks Tuesday in protests against the announcement of an election date, leaving four people dead and plunging the nation into fresh turmoil.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its Islamist allies called a 48-hour nationwide blockade to press their demand for a suspension of the January 5 general election date announced Monday evening.

The BNP has been urging Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and make way for a neutral caretaker government to oversee the election. It has been holding violent protests and strikes around the country to back its demand.

Hasina's government has rejected the demand and the Chief Elections Commissioner pushed ahead with the date, calling on parties to take part in the contest for the 300-seat parliament.

Opposition protesters took to the streets in cities and towns immediately after the announcement and clashes resumed Tuesday with police, who responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and in some cases live rounds.

"We fired rifles after about 500 protesters attacked us with home-made guns and small bombs," Abul Khaer, a police official in the eastern district of Comilla, told AFP.

Two people died in Comilla, including a protester caught in a small bomb blast overnight, police said. A ruling party official was beaten to death in the southern district of Satkhira by supporters of Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist party and a key opposition ally.

Police said one protester drowned in the northern town of Sirajganj after he jumped into a pond to escape tear gas, although ATN News TV station said he died after being hit by a gas shell.

Train services have been "paralysed" with hundreds of demonstrators uprooting tracks and sleepers, setting fire to coaches and blocking lines, Bangladesh Railway's traffic director Syed Zahur Hossain told AFP.

"There are at least 60 incidents of train obstructions including torchings, uprooting of tracks, attacking trains with stones and blockades of rail lines," he said, adding that major services between Dhaka and the cities of Chittagong and Sylhet were halted.

A train was derailed at Gouripur, 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of the capital, after opposition supporters removed sleepers from the tracks but no one was injured.

Security was tight in Dhaka with 8,000 police and paramilitary border guards on duty, police spokesman Masudur Rahman told AFP. Inter-regional bus services were suspended amid fears of violence, stranding thousands of passengers.

The election announcement came after weeks of deadly protests by the BNP and its allies in support of a neutral caretaker government.

At least 30 people were killed and hundreds injured.

Hasina has rejected calls for a caretaker administration and instead formed a multi-party interim cabinet last week which is composed of her allies.

She asked the BNP to join the cabinet but it refused.

While previous elections have been held under non-partisan interim governments, Hasina scrapped the arrangement in 2011.

She argued that the system had paved the way for the army to seize power in a country which has witnessed at least 19 coups since 1975.

One analyst said he doubted the elections would actually go ahead, given the boycott by the BNP which is leading in opinion polls.

"I don't think there will be polls on January 5. The schedule must be changed to accommodate the main opposition for a credible election," said Ataur Rahman.

Bangladesh has been plagued by political violence ever since it won independence from Pakistan in 1971 after a bloody war of secession.

Deadly clashes and a boycott threat by Hasina's Awami League led to the cancellation of elections in January 2007 and a subsequent coup.

An army-backed civilian government remained in power for two years until it called elections in December 2008 which were overwhelmingly won by the Awami League.