SALON

Sunday, Mar 3, 2013 7:00 AM UTC

Army sent to north Bangladesh to tackle violence

By

Topics: From the Wires,

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Authorities deployed soldiers in a northern Bangladeshi district Sunday after activists of the country’s largest Islamic party clashed with police, leaving three people dead during a nationwide general strike called to denounce an ongoing war crimes trial.

Separately two people died Sunday in a northwestern district during similar clashes.

With the latest casualties, the death toll in days of rioting has risen to 51 since Thursday after a war crimes tribunal sentenced Jamaat-e-Islami party leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee to death for atrocities committed during Bangladesh’s 1971 independence war against Pakistan.

Sayedee, 73, is the third defendant to be convicted by the tribunal, which was set up in 2010 by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government.

Bangladesh says the war left 3 million people dead, 200,000 women raped and forced millions to flee to neighboring India.

Mokbul Hossain, an additional police superintendent in Bogra district, said the deployment of troops came after three men died in clashes on Sunday.

Hossain said the latest violence erupted after the activists of Jamaat-e-Islami attacked at least four police outposts and a ruling Awami League office and torched a home of a local ruling party leader. The army was guarding a police station, he said.

Authorities banned all gatherings in the troubled locality to stop any further escalation of violence.

Separately, two people, including a child, died in Rajshahi district, the Daily Star newspaper and Independent television station reported. Details were not immediately available and the reports could not be independently verified immediately.

In the nation’s capital, Dhaka, schools and most businesses remained closed Sunday while traffic on the usually clogged streets was thin. Thousands of security officials were patrolling the streets, according to the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

The Islamic party, which opposed Bangladesh’s struggle for freedom in 1971, has called for a non-stop shutdown across the country for Sunday and Monday.

The party is accused of forming auxiliary forces that helped the Pakistani army in killing and other serious crimes during the war.

Seven other Jamaat leaders, including its chief Matiur Rahman Nizami, are on trial on war crimes charges.

The United Nations, the United States and the New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch have separately expressed their concern over the violence and urged all sides to stop the fighting.

Jamaat is a partner in Bangladesh’s main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, and was a partner in Zia’s government from 2001 to 2006.

Zia says the war crimes trials are politically motivated to target the opposition, an allegation denied by the government. Zia’s party has called for a nationwide general strike for Tuesday.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
348 points349 points | 110 comments
vote
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government -- "...much of the U.S. economic security support system consists of subsidies for the affluent in the form of tax breaks, like those for private retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s and private employer-provided health insurance."
59 points60 points | 3 comments
vote
Temple Grandin on DSM-5: “Sounds like diagnosis by committee.” When it comes to autism, Grandin argues we're paying too much attention to labels -- and not enough to individuals
36 points37 points | 3 comments
vote
Temple Grandin on DSM-5: “Sounds like diagnosis by committee.” When it comes to autism, Grandin argues we're paying too much attention to labels -- and not enough to individuals
34 points35 points | 2 comments
vote
Doug Henwood: Capitalism Thrives on Class Exploitation
33 points34 points | 4 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations