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DHAKA: Hundreds of people demonstrated in front of a key mosque in the Bangladeshi capital on Saturday (March 27), as the country braces for violence a day after deadly protests by hardline Islamists against the visit of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The clashes, which began on Friday at the main mosque in the capital Dhaka, spread to several key districts of the South Asian nation of 168 million, leaving five dead and dozens injured.
Facebook has been restricted in the country, a company spokesperson said after users complained they could not access the site since Friday afternoon when images and reports of the violence were shared on social media.
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A spokesman for the Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB), which also acts as a paramilitary reserve force to maintain public order, said it had deployed troops since Friday night.
“With the instructions of the Interior Ministry and in aid of the civil administration, the required number of BGB has been deployed in different districts of the country,” Lieutenant Colonel Fayzur Rahman told AFP, without revealing the numbers involved.
Rahman, who is the force’s director of operations, said there were no reports of violence after its deployment.
“The situation is normal,” he said.
READ: Amid anti-Modi protests, Facebook says services are restricted in Bangladesh
An AFP correspondent at the scene said the protesters belonged to Hefazat-e-Islam, the country’s largest hard-line Islamist group behind Friday’s protests in more than a dozen places, including its heart in Chittagong.
They chanted slogans against Modi, the correspondent said.
Several thousand Hefazat supporters also held protests in Hathazari, the rural city outside the country’s second-largest city, which witnessed the worst violence yesterday when four protesters were shot during the demonstrations.
Hefazat spokesman Jakaria Noman Foyezi told AFP that some 10,000 students from Hathazari Madrasa were on the road, blocking a key highway linking the port city with the country’s mountainous districts.
Ruhul Amin, the city government administrator, said Hefazat supporters erected a makeshift brick wall and excavated the road like vehicles, preventing the vehicles from moving on the roads.
“There is no violence,” he said.
Mohammad Jahangir, a senior Chittagong police officer, said border guards, police and the elite Rapid Action Battalion have been deployed to the city to address any adverse situations.
The riots occurred as Bangladesh celebrated 50 years of independence with rights groups calling for an end to growing authoritarianism, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions.
Police said four bodies of members of Hefazat-e-Islam, a hardline Islamist group, were taken to Chittagong Medical College Hospital after violence broke out in Hathazari, a rural city where the main group leaders.
A supporter of the group was also killed in clashes in the eastern border city of Brahmanbaria, another key Hefazat stronghold.
CALL OF STRIKE
A spokesman for Hefazat said tens of thousands of the group’s supporters rallied on Friday to protest against Modi’s two-day tour of Bangladesh.
The group has also called nationwide demonstrations for Saturday and a strike on Sunday to protest police actions and shoot “peaceful” protesters.
Hefazat is known for his national network and large-scale protests demanding that Bangladesh introduce anti-blasphemy laws.
In 2013, the police clashed with tens of thousands of Hefazat supporters in Dhaka, leaving nearly 50 dead.
Hefazat aside, a wide range of Bangladeshi groups, including students, leftists and other Islamist groups, have been organizing protests against Modi’s visit.
They accuse Modi and his Hindu nationalist government of stoking religious tensions and inciting violence against Muslims, including in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002, when 1,000 people were killed. Modi was the prime minister of Gujarat at the time.
Modi was scheduled to visit two key Hindu temples in rural districts of southern Bangladesh on Saturday.
As the protests spread, Facebook users complained that they were unable to access the site.
Post and Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar said his ministry was not responsible for the strike.
“This is not our decision,” he told AFP, adding that it is up to law enforcement agencies to say what actions they have taken.
“We are aware that our services have been restricted in Bangladesh. We are working to understand more and hope that full access will be restored as soon as possible,” said a Facebook spokesperson.
