BNP-led 20-Party Alliance has called another spell of 72-hour countrywide hartal from 6:00am Sunday, two days after the first spell of the party’s 72-hour shutdown ended on Thursday.

The fresh enforcement of 72-hour shutdown will end on Wednesday 6:00am, said a party statement on Friday.

Signed by BNP joint secretary general Salahuddin Ahmed, on behalf of the alliance, the statement said that the shutdown programme was aimed at resorting democracy and people’s voting right, and protesting government’s repressive acts and growing incidents of extrajudicial killing.

It said securing the release of the 20-party leaders and activists, including BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir are also the reasons behind this strike.

Salahuddin said the hartal would continue alongside their ongoing countrywide transport blockade which remains in force for 32 consecutive days.

Earlier Jamaat-e-Islami student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir also called a 24-hour countrywide hartal for Sunday protesting at the killing and arrest of it leaders and activists.

The alliance has been calling hartal intermittently amid its month-long non-stop blockade programme that started on 5 January in a bid to press home its demand of holding early elections under non-party administration.