Dhaka (AFP) – A teenage activist from an Islamist party in Bangladesh was killed during clashes in which police fired live bullets to disperse crowds ahead of a nationwide strike on Tuesday, officials said.
Local police chief Tariqul Islam told AFP that the cause of the activist’s death was unclear while a medical official said the 18-year-old died after being admitted to hospital with a gunshot wound to the head.
The Jamaat-e-Islami member died on Monday night in violence in the northern town of Chirirbandar, 300 km from the capital Dhaka.
“We fired seven rounds of live bullets, rubber bullets and tear gas shells,” Islam, the local police chief, said.
Shihidul Islam, a nurse at Rangpur Medical College Hospital, said the activist died as he was brought to the clinic. “He has a bullet shot in his head,” he told AFP.
About 20 policemen were also injured in the clashes, the police chief said.
In Dhaka on Tuesday, Jamaat supporters torched two buses and set fire to tyres in defiance of police who were out in force patrolling the city.
Jamaat called the strike to protest against the trial of its leaders who have been arrested and face charges of war crimes during the country’s 1971 liberation struggle.
The government blames Jamaat for much of the killing in the bloody nine-month war against Pakistan, in which it says about three million people died.
But the International Crimes Tribunal, created in 2010 to try war crimes suspects, has been widely criticised as being a political tool for the ruling Awami League government to target its opponents.
