At least five activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and Bangladesh Nationalist Party were shot dead in violent clashes with the police and Awami League activists in two northern districts of Bangladesh on Friday.
Three Islami Chhatra Shibir activists were killed in Chapainawabganj and one Shibir man and a BNP activist died in Sirajganj.
About 50 sustained bullet wounds in the fierce clashes after villagers led by BNP and Jamaat men attacked the police over raid and arrest of opposition activists.
The local units of the BNP-led opposition alliance called a dawn-to-dusk hartal in Chapainawabganj and a half-day hartal in Sirajganj for Sunday in protest at the killings.
The latest deaths took to 96 the number of people killed, including eight policemen, in violence since February 28 after an international crimes tribunal sentenced Jamaat-e-Islami nayeb-e-amir Delwar Hossain Sayedee to death for the war crimes he had committed in 1971. Most of them were opposition leaders and activists killed in police firing.
The police faced stiff resistance in Khulna, Jessore, Jhenaidah, Satkania and Rajshahi, in the last two weeks from
mobs of villagers incited by Jamaat-Shibir men during raids to arrest opposition activists.
New Age correspondent in Chapainawabganj reported that three people were killed and about 30 others sustained bullet injuries when the police opened fire to disperse a mob of villagers led by Jamaat-Shibir men after they attacked the law enforcers during a raid in Shyampur village under Shibganj upazila of the district.
The deceased were identified as Waliullah, 18, son of Abdul Hakim of Omarpur village, Matiur Rahman Mati, 45, son of Zillur Rahman of Gopalnagar village, and Rabiul Islam, 25, son of Mohammad Bedu of Babupur village.
Waliullah was a tenth grade student of Sharatnagar Dakhil madrassah while the rest two were farmers claimed by Jamaat as their men.
Several others, including 11 police men, injured in the fighting, were admitted to different hospitals in Chapainawabganj and Rajshahi.
In protest against the killings, the BNP-led ‘18-party’ alliance has called a dawn-to-dusk shutdown for Sunday in the district.
Locals said that the villagers, incited by Jamaat-Shibir men, built up resistance when the police went to Shyampur village to arrest an accused in the early hours of Friday.
At one point, the Jamaat-Shibir men held the police team hostage and on information the local administration dispatched reinforcements of police, Rapid Action Battalion and paramilitary Border
Guard Bangladesh to the village to rescue the police team.
Fierce clashes broke out when the Jamaat-Shibir men attacked the law enforcers.
The three villagers died on the spot. The bodies were kept at their respective houses. The police were not allowed to take the bodies for post-mortem examination until in the evening.
Police, RAB and BGB personnel were deployed to the area after the violence.
Jamaat-Shibir men blocked Chapainawabganj-Sona Masjid road with logs after the clashes that led to the suspension of traffic on all routes in the district.
Our Sirajganj correspondent said two activists of BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami were shot dead and 45 others, including two journalists and three police men, injured during violent clashes with the police at Kalyanpur village under Belkuchi upazila of the district on Friday morning. Awami League activists joined the police in the fighting.
Of the injured, nine sustained bullet wounds.
The deceased were identified as Shibir activist Yunus Ali, 16, son of Abdul Hamid of Kalyanpur village and also a student of class IX at Dhukuriabera High School and BNP activist Farid, 19, son of Abdul Majid of Sarbatulsi village.
Locals said the clashes broke out when BNP and Jamaat-Shibir men along with villagers snatched local Jamaat leader Habibur Rahman from the custody of police at Kalyanpur Bazar on way the police station after he was arrested at Mabupur village.
Soon the ruling party men joined the fighting. Police fired 143 rounds of tear gas and 25 rounds of bullet and rubber bullet to bring the situation under control, leaving about 45 people injured, 10 of them with bullets.
Local leaders of BNP and Jamaat alleged that fisheries and livestock minister Abdul Latif Biswas and his men had joined the police in the clashes and opened fire on the opposition men that led to the killing of two people.
‘Abdul Latif Biswas and his people opened fire on the villagers,’ Belkuchi upazila Jamaat secretary Ariful Islam alleged. Dhukuriabera union BNP secretary Noor-e-Alam echoed Ariful Islam.
Abdul Latif Biswas rejected the allegation saying he was busy distributing corrugated iron sheets as relief in the upazila town during the violence.
It could not be confirmed immediately who had fired the gunshots – police or AL men – that led to the killing of the two BNP-Jamaat activists.
The BNP-led alliance has called a half-day hartal for Sunday in Sirajganj in protest.
Tension was prevailing in both Chapainawabganj and Sirajganj.
Earlier, similar incidents took place in Jessore, where two people were killed in two days after police came under attack while trying to arrest accused. (Source)
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