DHAKA: The ruling Awami League was not involved in any anti-hartal activities, said party spokesman Syed Ashraful Islam Sunday, adding that AL wouldn’t take responsibility for the reported attacks by its youth and students associates.

He steered the party clear of the charge as opposition BNP alleged that Jubo League and Chhatra League men launched attacks on pickets to foil the general strike.

The AL general secretary and LGRD Minister, Ashraf, made the comments at the secretariat at noon following the alleged attacks.

Talking to reporters, the minister made it clear that Chhatra League and Juba League are merely ‘brotherhood organisations’ of the party and that the anti-hartal activities were being carried out “on their own responsibility”.

He also claimed his party and its student and youth arms did not attack pro-BNP Chhatra Dal activists in the city’s Shahbagh area during the strike hours.

Meanwhile, Mahbub-UL-Hanif, joint general secretary of the ruling party, told journalists that Sunday’s hartal was “totally unsuccessful”.

He also alleged at a news conference at the PM’s Dhanmondi office that BNP wanted to execute the hartal programme “by frightening people and it went in vain”.

“Movement of vehicles on the city roads has also been normal since morning,” he claimed.

BDST: 1447 pm, 27 June 2010
UB/SK/MRH/SMS/MUA