Police have accused 94 individuals, including the mayor of Barishal City Corporation, over a clash with the law enforcers, bdnews24.com reports.
Kotwali Police OC Nurul Islam said multiple ward councillors and leaders and members of the Awami League, Juba League and Chhatra League were named in the case filed on Thursday.
The incident occurred on Wednesday night surrounding the removal of a banner from Barishal Sadar Upazila Parishad.
SI Shahjalal Mallick of Kotwali Model Police Station initiated the case bringing charges of “landing blows and shooting with the intent to kill” while “being armed with deadly weapons” to obstruct a government operation.
Serniabat Sadiq Abdullah, mayor of Barishal City Corporation, has been named as the prime accused in the case. The plaintiff, UNO Munibur Rahman, has also started a case naming Abdullah as the main accused.
Another 13 people, including Joint General Secretary of Barishal Metropolitan Unit of the Awami League, Hasan Mahmud Babu, were shown arrested and sent behind bars following court orders.
Meanwhile, in a media briefing on Thursday, Barishal district and metropolitan units of the Awami League demanded a departmental probe into the incident.
Party leaders demanded the removal of the UNO in the press briefing,
“It is a barbaric attack,” said Talukder Mohammad Yunus, the general secretary of Awami League's Barishal Metropolitan unit.
“It was an attempt to create unrest in our peace-loving Barishal and corrupt politics here,” he said.
Claiming that there was no attack on the UNO’s residence, KM Jahangir, president of Barishal District Awami League, said it was all 'pre-planned'.
“If his house was attacked, bricks and stones would have been thrown to shatter glasses there. I was there until the end. There're no bricks or stones there.”
About the late-night drive, Barishal City Corporation CEO Faruk Ahmed said most of their cleanliness drives are carried out at night as they are busy in the day.
“So we carried out the operation at night. And there're no prohibitions against doing it at night and we’d done it before.”
