A mob hurled stones and bricks at former Bangladeshi president Badruddoza Chaudhry Thursday, preventing him from holding a rally where he was due to launch a group offering voters a "third way."
The unidentified attackers estimated at around 100 pelted the 72-year-old Chaudhry with the stones and bricks as he spoke to several hundred supporters on a major thoroughfare while making his way on foot to the rally site.
They then chased Chaudhry down the road and he fell but was unhurt. Police rescued Chaudhry from his pursuers but could not immediately identify them.
"The country is now under fascist rule and the rulers have violated my democratic right to hold a peaceful rally," he said as the meeting was cancelled.
The site where the rally was to be held was overrun by members of "The Homeless People Group" who denounced a slew of opposition-called general strikes that have shut down the nation in the past month.
Chaudhry's plans to form the group offering Bangladeshis a "third way" that observers expect to turn into a full-fledged party come amid mounting political unrest in the poverty-wracked South Asian nation.