Five people were killed and scores injured as BNP-Jamaat activists went berserk in different districts on the first day of the opposition-sponsored 60-hour hartal yesterday.
The killings have been reported from Jessore, Faridpur, Pabna, Pirojpur and Bogra.
The dead included three members of Jubo League, Jubo Dal and Jamaat-e-Islami.
BNP-Jamaat men hacked Swapan Shill, a barber by profession in Pirojpur. He succumbed to his injuries at Khulna Medical College Hospital.
A BNP man was killed and five others were injured as two rival groups of the main opposition party clashed in Bogra yesterday.
The BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance is enforcing the shutdown demanding a non-party polls-time government.
In Dhaka, pro-hartal activists set fire to at least 23 vehicles, including six BRTC buses at Gabtoli, and Awami League offices in Jatrabari, Uttara and Motijheel.
Three, including a 16-year-old boy, were injured in violence.
The BNP-Jamaat men blasted crude bombs at more than a hundred places in the capital, including in front of the offices of CPB, Desh TV, Bhorer Kagoj and Election Commission and Dhaka District and Sessions Judge's Court.
An arson attack took place at a Dhaka court around 2:00pm, leaving some documents gutted, sources say.
Law enforcers recovered 17 crude bombs and half a kg of gunpowder from Dhaka University staff quarters at Azimpur.
Pro-hartal activists set ablaze the Lalbagh power office around 10:50pm, fire service officials say.
However, the fire caused only minor damage as employees and locals doused it immediately. They also caught a man on suspicion and handed him over to Chawkbazar police.
An auto-rickshaw driver suffered burns as pro-hartal men hurled a bomb at his vehicle in Shajahanpur.
Tejgaon police have filed a case against BNP leader Sadeque Hossain Khoka and 22 others in connection with an attempt to burn cars in the city on the eve of hartal.
In Joypurhat, all the compartments of two trains were vandalised, leaving at least 70 passengers injured. Four compartments were burned down.
The Khulna-bound Rupsa Express came under attack as it arrived at Joypurhat railway station around 10:20am. Pickets stopped the Chalanta Rocket Mail by putting logs on rail lines in Puranpoil area around 12:30pm, police said.
After the incident, trains of different routes were suspended. However, the rail communication resumed around 2:00pm, sources said.
In Lalmonirhat, another northern district, hartal supporters uprooted the rail line near Mohendranagar Railway Station and beat up some railway officials.
The BNP-Jamaat men also vandalised two private hospitals in Chandpur and smashed an ambulance in Gazipur, medicine vans in Habiganj and newspaper-carrying vehicles in Cox's Bazar. Usually, these vehicles remain out of hartal's purview.
In Jessore, opposition supporters killed Alamgir Hossain Shimul, 38, general secretary of Noapara Municipality Jubo League.
Witnesses and police said Shimul and his four associates were moving around by a microbus in Noapara municipality area defying hartal. Around 8:30am, they encountered a Jamaat-BNP procession in Ferry Ghat area.
Chased by the pickets, Shimul and his men took shelter in Highway police outpost but could not escape the attack.
Pro-hartal activists, led by Jamaat-Shibir activists, hacked Shimul indiscriminately and cut his tendon. They injured his four aides and set fire to the microbus.
KM Ariful Haque, additional superintendent of police, said they arrested five people in connection with the killing.
Later around 1:30pm, five policemen were injured and a police vehicle was torched by Jamaat-Shibir men at Kuyada Bazar in Jessore sadar upazila.
In Faridpur, a Jubo Dal activist was killed and at least 20, including a Rab official and policemen, were injured in a clash between law enforcers and hartal supporters in Nagarkanda upazila.
The dead, Maruf Sheikh, 20, was a son of Rabu Sheikh at Minargram in Nagarkanda upazila.
Pickets wrecked three buses on both sides of Nagarkanda bridge and its adjacent areas. They barricaded different points on roads felling trees and burning tyres, sources say.
As police tried to maintain law and order, hartal supporters chased them with lethal weapons and sticks. At one stage, police opened fire, leaving one dead and 20 injured.
In Pabna, a Jamaat activist was killed while five others were injured in a clash between pickets and anti-hartal activists in Muladuli of Ishwardi upazila.
Some 20 to 25 people were injured in different clashes while many houses, shops, vehicles vandalised and torched in the district.
The deceased was Julhas Uddin alias Munnaf, 35, an activist of Muladuli union unit of Jamaat, sources said.
While Jamaat claimed armed AL men attacked pickets at Shekhpara of Muladuli around 11:00am, AL leaders said Jamaat men opened fire and set alight the union AL office.
Explosion, vandalism, road blockade, running battles and arson took place also in 19 other districts where around 520 people, including 40 law enforcers, injured.
Pro-hartal activists damaged at least 45 vehicles and 22 shops, two hospitals, two vehicles carrying newspapers and offices of Awami League and Jatiya Party in different parts of the country.