The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party has called a nationwide dawn-to-dusk general strike for Sunday while the local unit has called another dawn-to-dusk general strike in the Sylhet division for today in protest at the disappearance of M Elias Ali.
The party’s organising secretary Elias, also the Sylhet unit BNP chief, went missing about midnight past Tuesday.
The police in Dhaka said that they had found Elias’s car left abandoned in front of a municipal park at Banani, near his house, early Wednesday. Neither Elias nor his driver Ansar were in the car.
The BNP blamed the government for Elias’s disappearance and warned of tougher agitation programmes.
The acting BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir after a meeting of the standing committee, presided over by the party’s chairperson Khaleda Zia, on Wednesday night announced a series of programmes including general strike for Sunday. The programmes also included demonstrations across the country to be held today and tomorrow. 
The BNP’s youth front Jatiyatabadi Swechchhasebak Dal also called a general strike in the Sylhet district for Sunday and Monday saying that the strike would be enforced if Elias was not found by Wednesday.
The district and city units of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, student organisation backed by the BNP, called for indefinite strike in all educational institutions in the Sylhet city.
The government has postponed the Higher Secondary Certificate examination under the Sylhet board and the vocational examination under the Technical Education Board across the country scheduled for today in the wake of the announcement of the general strike.
The BNP central committee, its local unit in Syhlet and front and associate organisations on Wednesday separately announced the general strike.
The education ministry on Wednesday evening issued a release saying that HSC examination under the Sylhet board and the vocational examination under the Technical Education Board across the country scheduled for today have been postponed because of ‘unavoidable reasons.’
The release also said that HSC examinations under other boards would be held as scheduled on Thursday.
Fresh schedules for the exams will be published in newspapers at an appropriate date, it added.