Bangladesh police on Thursday said they have identified four suspects who set on fire an inter-district train that killed four passengers earlier this week in Dhaka, amid unrest over January 7 elections being boycotted by the main opposition BNP.

Arsonists torched three compartments of the Dhaka-bound Mohanganj Express train near Tejgaon area on Tuesday in which one child and three others were killed.

“We have found pictures of four suspected saboteurs and are now keeping a vigil on their movements,” Lieutenant Colonel Arif Mohiuddin Ahmed of the elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) told reporters.

Ahmed said RAB would come up with details after arresting the four suspects and collecting more related evidence.

Tuesday's attack was the latest such incident in the last few weeks.

One passenger was killed and dozens others wounded last week after seven compartments of the same train derailed in Gazipur on the outskirts of Dhaka as saboteurs uprooted railway tracks on the same route. There were five other such attacks or attempted attacks on trains in the past one month.

Soon after the Gazipur incident, police arrested seven leaders and activists, including a municipal ward councilor of the suburban district, of ailing former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), on charges of uprooting railway tracks.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Habibur Rahman on Thursday admitted that acts of sabotage were increasing ahead of Bangladesh’s 12th general elections but law enforcement agencies have beefed up security vigils.

"A frightening situation has arisen centering the political programmes of one or two political parties" for the past two months, he told reporters here.

However, police have arrested most of the saboteurs and have taken steps to prevent such activities in the coming days in collaboration with other security and intelligence agencies, he said.

According to a media tally, 11 people died and 376 vehicles were torched in the past two months in political violence. Police arrested thousands of opposition activists and figures, including de-facto BNP leader and party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, over charges of violence.

BNP on Wednesday called for a “non-cooperation” movement against the Awami League-led government, urging people not to pay taxes and utility bills, as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina launched her poll campaign amid political unrest ahead of the January 7 elections.

BNP and its mostly far-right allies allege that no election under the incumbent dispensation would be fair and demand the restoration of a non-party interim government for election oversight by amending the country’s Constitution.

Since October 29, the BNP has been holding intermittent nationwide strikes and transport blockades to press for their demand for elections under a neutral government, which the ruling party rejected saying the poll would be held in line with the existing Constitution.

The BNP is boycotting the election after its demand for an interim non-party neutral government to organise the voting was rejected by Hasina's government. The party had boycotted the 2014 election but took part in 2018 polls.

With the BNP boycotting the election, and no other credible opposition party against it, Hasina's Awami League is likely to gain an upper hand and likely to form the government for the fourth consecutive term.

Awami League last week decided to spare 26 out of the 300 parliamentary seats to the technically opposition Jatiya Party (JAPA) in an apparent effort to pursue it to take part in the January 7 elections in BNP’s absence, while its own nominees withdrew their candidature from these seats.

JAPA was reluctant to take part in elections until recently, exposing the ruling party to a major challenge of legitimising the polling and ensuring its participatory nature amid boycott by BNP.

JAPA on Thursday announced its election manifesto as an “opposition party”.

Asked if JAPA is taking part in elections under any deal with the government, its secretary general Mujibul Haque Chunnu replied in the negative. “It is them (Awami League) who can tell you why they have withdrawn their candidature (from 26 seats),” he said.

Chunnu said JAPA was a sensible opposition which was loud enough in Parliament against the “government’s corruptions, misdeeds and misrule”.

Awami League has also left six seats to its partners in the 14-party ruling alliance -- three seats to left-leaning Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JASOD) and two to Workers Party and one to another Jatiya Party faction called JP.

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