The fourteen party opposition alliance held a two-hour long sit-in program starting at 11:00am yesterday, defying the government ban on gatherings, rallies and processions around two-and-a-half kilometer radius of the secretariat.
As a post-sit-in rally ended near the Bangabandhu National Stadium, the main venue of the sit-in program, at Gulistan, the demonstrators and the law enforcers locked in a clash. The opposition blamed the police for attacking their peaceful demonstrations. They staged rallies at different parts of the city in the afternoon in protest of the attacks.
Hundreds of Opposition activists including some opposition leaders were injured in the clash. Police, however, counter-blamed the opposition men for "provoking" the police to go into action. The Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) had deployed around 9,000 law enforcers at different strategic points around the secretariat to thwart the opposition men.
