Bangladesh strike: 2 killed in police firing
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Dhaka: Two Islamist demonstrators, including a minor, were killed in police firing when machete-wielding protesters went on a rampage on Tuesday against the conviction of fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami's 91-year-old supremo Ghulam Azam.
Acting on a tip-off that protesters had blocked a road at Kaliganj in Satkhira during the countrywide daylong strike, a team of around 35 policemen rushed to the scene to remove the blockade, the Daily Star reported, quoting Tajul Islam, assistant superintendent of police of the area.
As soon as police started to remove the barricades, the country's largest Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir protesters suddenly swooped on them with sticks, Islam said.
At one stage, the Jamaat-Shibir men also opened fire on them, forcing the law enforcers to retaliate with fire, he said. The protesters also attacked the police with machetes and homemade bombs. A 15-year-old boy and a middle-aged man were killed in the firing.
Nine policemen and three Jamaat-Shibir activists also sustained injuries during the clash early on Tuesday, the report said. Of them, the condition of a policeman was stated to be critical.
Gonojagoron Mancha and Jamaat have separately called the strike for Tuesday, protesting the verdict in the war crimes case against Azam who was sentenced to 90 years in jail on Monday by a special Bangladeshi tribunal for masterminding atrocities during the country's 1971 war of independence.
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