Bangladesh security forces arrested more than 100 protesters on Thursday as they launched a nationwide crackdown on the opposition ahead of the controversial January 5 general election.
Officials said the protesters were detained in joint operations by the police, the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and paramilitary border guards amid a series of transport blockades called by opposition parties that are boycotting the polls.
The “joint forces” arrested 118 people, mostly activists from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its key ally Jamaat-e-Islami, in five districts where police had earlier clashed with demonstrators.
The BNP, Jamaat and their smaller allies have been staging protests since late October to try to force Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to step down so that a neutral caretaker government can oversee the election.
She refuses to accept the arrangement, which was in place during previous national polls.
The BNP has refused to field candidates for the January election, saying the vote under Hasina will be rigged – an accusation the premier flatly rejects.
Jamaat, the country’s largest Islamist party, which has been barred from contesting the polls, is also furious with the government after one of its leaders was executed last week for crimes during the 1971 independence war.
