Of the bullet-injured, village girl Helena Aktar, 18, was fighting for life at the intensive care unit of Enam Medical College Hospital at Savar though it was primarily reported that she had died.
About 55 people, including 21 policemen, were injured in the fighting, locals and police said.
Singair police officer-in-charge Liaquat Ali, who sustained critical injuries, was shifted to Square Hospital in Dhaka, said Manikganj superintendent of police Mohammad Ali Mia.
Some locals alleged that law enforcers and ruling party men had opened fire ‘indiscriminately’ on demonstrators demanding punishment of the bloggers whom the Islamists accused of maligning Islam and its Prophet(SM), a charge the bloggers denied.
A number of Islamist parties and groups enforced the countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal on the day also in protest at the killing of four of their activists in Friday’s violence.
The hartal was supported by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
Jahangir Hossain of Gobinddhal said that the violence erupted after police and ruling party men had attacked pro-hartal activists.
Shahidul, a pro-hartal activist, alleged that ruling party men had shot dead two of the four deceased after snatching them away from the law enforcers.
Both police and local leaders of Awami League denied the allegations saying the villagers were killed when the Islamists fired on the law enforcers.
‘The police fired 269 gunshots and more than 150 rubber bullets in self- defense after several hundred villagers attacked us with firearms, other lethal weapons and bamboo sticks,’ the additional superintendent of police of Manikganj, Mizanur Rahman, told New Age.
‘The area is dominated by radical Islamists, not only Jamaat. You can call the village a Pakistani neighbourhood where nine madrassahs are located. So you can guess the mentality of the villagers,’ he said.
At least 21 police personnel were injured while police arrested 14 people and process were under way for filing three cases in this connection, he said.
Protesting at the killings, ‘Ulema Mashaikh O Towhidi Janata’ called a daylong general strike in Manikganj district for today.
Besides, leaders of seven Islamist parties, which enforced the nationwide shutdown on Sunday, denounced the killing of villagers in police firing and announced demonstrations for today and Friday across the country in protest.
They also gave an ‘ultimatum’ to some national dailies, including Prothom Alo, The Daily Star, Kaler Kantha, Samakal and Ekattor television, to shun ‘atheist mindset’ by next Thursday.
‘Otherwise, we will urge the countrymen on next Friday to boycott the products of the groups and companies running those newspapers, including Transcom group, City group, Meghna group and Bashundhara group,’ said Khalafat Andolan organising secretary Fakhrul Islam who announced the programme.
Twenty-four people, including blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider, were killed in violence all over the country since the Shahbagh protests began on February 5 to press death penalty for the war criminals of 1971.
Some witnesses said the trouble at Gobindhhal began when pro-hartal pickets blocked the Manikganj-Singair road but faced obstruction from Awami League activists led by its Singair upazila secretary Abdul Majed.
Moments later, the Islamists regrouped and pounced on Majed leaving him injured. He was admitted to the upazila health complex.
As the news of the attack spread, AL activists rushed to the spot and vandalised the local office of BNP and some nearby shops.
In the face of the counter-attack, the Islamists urged the villagers through the PA system of different local mosques to resist the police and AL activists.
Hearing the call, several hundred armed villagers, both men and women, came out and attacked the police and ruling party men triggering a fierce gunfight.
The deceased were identified by locals and relatives as Alamgir Hossain, 35, Nasir Uddin, 27, Nazimuddin, 26, BNP’s Singair municipality unit disaster and relief secretary, and Shah Alam, imam of a local mosque.
Locals said the law enforcers had fired gunshots even by entering into houses where the pro-hartal activists had taken shelters, leaving Helena Aktar injured. New Age correspondents found the tin-made walls of Aktar’s house riddled with bullets.
Police shot Nasir Uddin, brother-in-law of Helena Aktar, when he was going to the hospital where the girl was admitted, according to the accounts of some villagers.
On-duty doctors at the hospital declared Nasir dead.
Besides, the pro-hartal activists said that the ruling party men had snatched away Nazimuddin and Shah Alam from the custody of police in front of Proshika office and shot them dead when they were being taken to the local police station on charge of attack on law enforcers.
The general strike in other places of the country, including Dhaka, passed off peacefully barring stray incidents with relatively less presence of pickets on the streets.
The ruling Awami League and its associate bodies brought out anti-hartal processions in the capital and different district towns. The main opposition BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami extended support to the shutdown but there was no visible presence of their activists on the streets.
Shahbagh protesters brought out processions in the capital on the day calling upon the people to reject the hartal and in protest against the burning of the national flag, vandalism of shaheed minars and desecration of mosques by Islamists on Friday.
Educational institutions and most businesses remained closed during the shutdown. Traffic was thinner than usual in the capital and long route buses were off the road.
Police were seen idling away their time as there were virtually no pickets on the streets. Some pickets set a human hauler ablaze at Jatrabari early in the morning.
At about the same time, another group of pickets exploded several crude bombs at Janapath intersection. At about 7:15 am, the hartal supporters brought out a procession in the city’s Shahjahanpur area but police dispersed them.
In Gazipur, hartal supporters vandalised three buses at Bhogra bypass intersection in the morning.
In Natore, Islamists brought out processions and staged demonstrations burning tyres on Natore-Bogra highway at Haguria in the morning.
In Joypurhat, pickets torched a microbus carrying newspapers on Joypurhat-Bogra highway at about 7:00am.
In Bogra, police fired in the air to disperse processions of Olama-Mashayekh Parishad at Khandar and Godarpara of the town in the morning. Police also fired 19 rounds of rubber bullets to bring the situation under control when hartal supporters blocked Naogaon-Bogra highway.
In Laxmipur, three people, including Chhatra League activists Mohan and Russell, were injured in an attack by Islamists at Dalal Bazar of sadar upazila in the morning.
The pickets damaged three vehicles in front of Alia Madrassah and on Mia Road at about 7:00am while police detained three people.
In Jhenaidah town, police arrested two activists of Jamaat-e-Islami.
In Khulna, the general strike affected life as most shops remained closed and vehicles were off the road. Awami League activists brought out a procession led by city mayor Talukder Abdul Khaleque in the morning. The marchers stormed the office of Jamaat’s labour wing Sramik Kalyan Federation at Khalishpur. They burned furniture and books in the office.
At Moulvibazar, police arrested Abdul Karim, president of Moulvibazar Government College unit of Chhatra Shibir, at court road of the town on during hartal hours.
In Chittagong, Mostaque Ahmed, additional deputy commissioner of police, said pickets had set a human hauler on fire at Andarkillah in the morning.
AFM Nizam Uddin, assistant superintendent of police, said hartal supporters had halted a city-bound train from Nazirhat near Hathazari station, but the police removed the barricade after an hour.
The Chittagong Port sources said handling of containers at the port jetties was as usual during the hartal hours. But delivery of containers from the port was affected a little.
In Sylhet, a few Jamaat-Shibir activists brought out sudden processions from Bagbari, Upa-Shahar and Payra area in the city early in the morning.
In Brahmanbaria, pickets put barricades on Dhaka-Sylhet highway on Brahmanbaria bypass road. Ruling party activists damaged two ATM booths and a branch office of Islami Bank in the town.
