A bus was set on fire and another was vandalised during yesterday's countrywide hartal enforced by BNP and its allies.

At least 28 people, including three police personnel, were injured as police and BNP activists clashed in Gaibandha and Noakhali.

In the capital's Gulistan, criminals torched a bus of Malancha Paribahan around 1:00pm, said firefighters, adding that no one was hurt in the incident.

At a virtual press briefing in the afternoon, BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi blamed the government for yesterday's fire incident in Mohanganj Express.

"Sabotage is being carried out by the government, and our activists are being falsely blamed. It is clear who masterminded this heinous crime," said Rizvi.

In Gaibandha's Palashbari, pickets vandalised a buson the Bogura-Rangpur highway in Jundah area around 12:30pm.

The clash broke out when policefired teargas shells and opened fire into the air to disperse the agitators, injuring three police personnel, including a sub-inspector of Palashbari Police Station, said Uday Kumar Saha, assistant superintendent of Gaibandha police.

Abul Kalam Azad, joint secretary of Gaibandha BNP, claimed that at least 20 BNP activists were wounded in the incident.

In another clash, police used truncheons on a procession of BNP activists in support of the hartal in Senbagh Road area in Noakhali's Senbagh around 8:30am to drive them away from the spot.

At least five BNP leaders and activists were injured in the incident, said party's central leader Kazi Mofizur Rahman.

In Narayanganj, BNP activists demonstrated on the Dhaka-Chattogram highway at Shimrail after pouring petrol on the road and setting it on fire.

On information, police went there and brought the situation under control, said Abu Bakkar Siddique, officer-in-charge of Siddhirganj Police Station.

[Our correspondents in Bogura, Noakhali and Narayanganj contributed to this report]