Dhaka: Thousands of protesters demanding electoral reforms in Bangladesh targeted major transport links on Sunday, attacking trains and other vehicles and leaving at least one person dead, media reports and witnesses said.
About 15,000 security officials, including members of a paramilitary force, deployed around Dhaka, the Capital, which was largely cut off from the rest of the country by the blockades, ATN Bangla television reported.
Thousands of protesters defied a ban on demonstrations that came after a 14-party alliance led by Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina said on Saturday it would choke roads and rail links to the capital with sit-ins to press for the resignation of election officials accused of bias ahead of January elections.
Late last month, rioting left at least 27 dead after clashes between supporters of Hasina and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who was constitutionally mandated to cede power on October 27 to a caretaker government that will oversee the next elections.
On Sunday, protesters blocked rail tracks and later set fire to a train in Tongi, just outside the capital. Firefighters doused the fire immediately and no one was injured.
Separately, a group of protesters attacked a train in the district of Brahmanbaria, 50 miles east of the capital, Dhaka, ATN Bangla reported.
In Dhaka, only a few tricycle rickshaws were plying the roads Sunday. Protesters attacked a number of vehicles that tried to defy the strike.
At Demra just outside the Capital, stone-throwing rioters chased a three-wheel taxi, which overturned. A passenger inside later died of his injuries at a Dhaka hospital, the United News of Bangladesh news agency said.
On Saturday, Richard Boucher, US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, visited Dhaka and asked all parties to avoid violence.
Boucher was to meet President Iajuddin Ahmed on Sunday.
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