Bangladesh cuts power, Internet at opposition leader Khaleda Zia’s office

Dhaka: Bangladesh authorities on Saturday cut the power to opposition leader Khaleda Zia’s office in an apparent bid to force her to call off a crippling anti-government transport blockade.

Local television showed footage of a technician from a state-run power utility climbing a ladder and cutting the line outside Zia’s office, where she has been holed up since the protests began early in January.

“We got permission from police to cut the power line,” the technician said.

Channel 24 said Internet and satellite television connections to her office were also severed. Shamsuddin Dider, a spokesman for Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, said the 69-year-old leader was “shocked and surprised” by the move.

He said the mobile phone network around the office had also been jammed.

The power line was cut just hours after a government minister reportedly threatened to sever the office’s electrical supply and force Zia her to starve to death if she did not call off the nationwide transport blockade.

“Even the food provided to you by your party officials will not reach your room. You’ll have to die there without food,” shipping minister Shahjahan Khan said while addressing a rally on Friday.

Zia has been confined in her office in Dhaka’s upmarket Gulshan district for weeks after threatening to rally her supporters against the government of bitter rival Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on January 5, the first anniversary of a disputed general election.