2 killed as B’desh Islamists protest against execution

DHAKA: Two student activists have been shot dead in Bangladesh, police said on Monday, as the country’s largest Islamist party tried to enforce a nationwide strike to protest at the execution of one of its senior leaders.

There were also reports of protesters firebombing vehicles around the country as tensions ran high following the execution of Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party late on Saturday.

Police said the body of a 22-yearold student supporter of the party had been found in the western city of Rajshahi on Monday. He had been shot at least five times.

Another student activist died in hospital on Monday morning after he was shot during clashes between police and protesters in Sirajganj district on Sunday night, said the district’s deputy police chief Faruq Ahmed.

Ahmed said the clashes broke out after police arrested four student supporters of Jamaat.

Kamaruzzaman was convicted of overseeing a massacre during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.

Jamaat has condemned the execution as “political murder” and says the government is more interested in mounting a witchhunt against its opponents than in justice.

Security was tight across the country on Monday with extra police, other security forces and border guards patrolling sensitive places.

Police said a driver was critically wounded when protesters firebombed his truck in the eastern city of Comilla just after midnight. Protesters also torched a bus just outside Dhaka and three vehicles in the port city of Chittagong, according to media reports.

Bangladesh went ahead with the execution despite last-minute pleas by the European Union and the UN, which has said the trial did not meet international standards.