Bangladesh police clash with pro-Hasina activists, at least three dead

Interim leader Yunus says Awami League members committed ‘heinous act’ in attempt to disrupt rally of student-led NCP.

Bangladeshi security forces clashed with supporters of deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, leaving at least three people dead and many injured.

Violence broke out Wednesday in the southern town of Gopalganj when members of Hasina’s Awami League tried to disrupt a rally by the National Citizens Party (NCP), which is made up of students who spearheaded the unrest that toppled the leader last year.

TV footage showed pro-Hasina activists armed with sticks attacking police and setting vehicles on fire as NCP leaders arrived at the new party’s “March to Rebuild the Nation” programme commemorating the uprising.

Monoj Baral, a nurse at the Gopalganj District Hospital, told the news agency AFP that three people were killed. Local media, including the English-language Daily Star, said that four had died.

One of the dead was identified by Baral as Ramjan Sikdar. The other two were taken away from the hospital by their families, said Baral.

Authorities imposed an overnight curfew in the district.

Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus, who replaced Hasina three days after her overthrow last year, said that the attempt by the former leader’s supporters to foil the NCP rally was “a shameful violation of their fundamental rights”.

“This heinous act … will not go unpunished,” said a statement from the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s office.

Hasnat Abdullah, an NCP coordinator, said rally attendees took refuge at a police station after being attacked. “We don’t feel safe at all. They threatened to burn us alive,” he told AFP.

New political force

Bangladesh has been in political turmoil since Hasina was toppled nearly a year ago.

Hasina, who fled to India following a student-led uprising last August, faces several charges. This month, she was sentenced in absentia to six months in prison for contempt of court by the country’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT).

Gopalganj is a politically sensitive district because the mausoleum of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is located there.

Rahman, the country’s founding president, was buried there after he was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1971.

Hasina would go on to contest elections from the constituency.

The NCP march was launched on July 1 across all districts in Bangladesh as part of its drive to position itself as a new force in Bangladeshi politics.

The country’s political landscape has been largely dominated by two dynastic families: Hasina’s Awami League party and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.

Yunus has said an election will be held in April next year.