Opposition suspected of arson before elections  (elections)

Dhaka: Five people died in a fire on a passenger train ahead of elections in Bangladesh, with police suspecting arson amid unrest ahead of national elections  (elections) boycotted by the opposition. Fire service official Rakjibul Hasan said at least four coaches of the Benapole Express traveling from the western city of Jessore to the capital Dhaka caught fire.

“We have recovered five bodies,” police commander Khandaker Al Moeen told reporters. Eyewitnesses said the train caught fire at Gopibag in the old part of Dhaka near the megacity’s main rail terminal. A local said that hundreds of people had rushed to take people out of the burning train. He said that we saved many people. But the fire spread rapidly.
Indian citizens were also traveling in the train. “We suspect that the fire incident was an act of sabotage,” police chief Anwar Hossain told AFP, without giving further details. Police and the government blamed the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) for the deaths of four people in another train fire last month. BNP) was held guilty.

The BNP denied any involvement in that incident, saying it was wrongly blamed in the name of a government crackdown on opposition parties. Voting will be held for national elections in Bangladesh on Sunday. But the BNP and dozens of other parties have boycotted it, calling it a “sham vote”. Thousands of opposition activists were arrested late last year following a protest campaign demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.