Bangladesh eases ban on opposition rally amid mounting tension

Bangladesh authorities today relaxed a ban allowing opposition BNP to stage a planned rally here tomorrow demanding the amendment of the electoral system amid mounting tensions over a non-party interim government to oversee the upcoming general elections.
"We have informed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leaders over phone that the permission has been granted on certain conditions," a police spokesman told reporters after the main opposition party vowed to go ahead with their planned protest defying the temporary ban on rallies.
He did not elaborate on the conditions. Authorities in the past several hours slapped identical ban on rallies in five more cities including the port city of Chittagong.

Officials said the fresh ban was imposed for indefinite period in southwestern Khulna, 24 hours in nearby Barisal and 48 hours and 36 hours in northwestern Bogra and Dinajpur.
Paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) troops were called out to guard the streets in the capital and suburban port town of Narayangang alongside Chittagong since evening fearing outbreak of violence despite the permission for the rally.
"Everything necessary will be done to ensure the safety of the people and their property," a Home Ministry official earlier told newsmen.

Police and elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) earlier said they mobilised extra force in strategic locations outside Dhaka to prevent BNP and its rightwing ally fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami's reported move to cut Dhaka's communication line with rest of the country.

BNP chief Khaleda Zia, meanwhile claimed that the Awami League-led government would turn "illegal" from tomorrow as the 90-day countdown for the polls, due on January 25, begins tomorrow amid mounting opposition demands for installation of a non-party interim government for election oversight.
"Your (government's) time is over," Zia told a rally of a pro-BNP teachers' platform in the capital and added that her party would now wage a movement to overthrow what she said 'the illegal government' unless her arch-rival Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina acted in line with her formula to constitute the interim non-party government during the poll time.

Law enforcement agencies earlier were ordered to step up security amid the mounting tensions across Bangladesh over a possible face off between Awami League and BNP, which planned for a massive showdown tomorrow for amending the electoral system.
BNP and its allies yesterday joined the Parliament for a brief period as the sitting of the last session resumed after days of recess but walked out immediately as the ruling party members called their proposal on electoral system "unrealistic" and contrary to the Constitution.
The government is yet to formally respond to the opposition proposal floated by Zia earlier this week but the premier yesterday called her proposition "impractical" .

Zia on Monday floated a proposal on formation of a polls time non-party caretaker government rejecting Hasina's last week's proposal for an all-party government for election oversight within the constitutional framework.