News today.

Suspected opposition activists on Saturday torched a bus and a microbus on the eve of a two-day hartal called by the BNP-led 18-party alliance protesting disappearance of BNP leader M Ilias Ali.

Unidentified criminals exploded three crude bombs on the road divider near on the west side of Sonargaon Hotel around 9:00pm, police said.

Shah Alam, officer-in-charge of Ramna Police Station, told The Daily Star that no-one was injured in the blasts.

Police said a group of four to five youths set fire to a bus after pouring petrol on it at New Market intersection around 4:00pm.

AKM Azizul Haque, officer-in-charge of Lalbagh Police Station, told The Daily Star, the passengers rushed out of the bus of Gazipur-Azimpur route but no injuries were reported.

The microbus was set ablaze by unknown miscreants in Fakirapool area at about 7:00pm, said Kazi Abdullah Al Mahmood, an assistant sub-inspector of Paltan Police Station.

BNP and its allies Saturday afternoon called hartal for Sunday and Monday after the government failed to produce its missing leader M Ilias Ali before the nation.

M Ilias Ali, a former lawmaker and now Sylhet Division organising secretary of the party, and his driver went missing around midnight of April 17.

On April 18, police found Ilias's private car abandoned near his Banani residence in the capital and that day BNP called a dawn-to-dusk hartal for April 22. Later, the party also extended the hartal to April 23 and 24.