Bangladesh boils over execution of opposition leader

The execution of the leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami political party Motiur Rahman Nizami has sparked heavy protests in Bangladesh with the party issuing a strike call as local police resorted to using rubber bullets to disperse raging protesters.

Nizami was hanged on charges relating to the massacre of intellectuals during the 1971 independence war with Pakistan and the decision to execute him didn’t go down well with his party members who came out in their hundreds to protest, attacking policemen with stones in the northwestern city of Rajshahi.

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“There were 500 Jamaat activists who were protesting against the execution. We fired rubber bullets as they became violent,” Selim Badsah, Rajshahi police inspector, told the AFP news agency.
He said about 20 people were arrested.

Jamaat activists and supporters of the governing Awami League also clashed in Chittagong, where about 2,500 attended a service for Nizami, Masudul Hasan, the port city’s deputy police chief, told AFP.

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