Islamist-party led shutdown turns violent, four killed

Four people were killed and dozens, including some law enforcers, injured when police, attacked by Islamist pickets, opened fire in Bangladesh on Sunday.

Khelafat Majlish, one of the eight Islamist parties, enforced the countrywide daylong shutdown on Sunday in Manikgonj, near Dhaka, calling the Shahbagh protesters “anti Islamic”. The deaths were all reported from Manikgonj, 40 miles from Dhaka.

Resistance

Meanwhile, defying the dawn-to-dusk shutdown, hundreds of demonstrators brought out a huge mass procession on Sunday from Shahbagh Projonmo Chottor, chanting revolutionary slogans and taking a vow to resist the shutdown called the Islamist parties.

They demanded death penalty to all war criminals and ban on Jamaat-e-Islami. People regardless of religion, caste and creed; bloggers; organisers of the Shahbagh movement; and leaders and activists of different student organisations took part in the procession.

The youngsters, having completed their 19-day protests in Shahbagh earlier, called the people to resist those who had rampaged through the country on Friday — burning and tearing national flags, destroying Shaheed Minars and beating up police. Led by Khelafat Andolon, eight Islamic parties, most of them less known, called the shutdown demanding punishment to ‘atheist bloggers’ who organised the unprecedented Shahbagh protest, demanding death penalty to the war criminals . The main opposition BNP had extended support to the countrywide shutdown.