Strike, violent clashes and police firing mark anti-Modi protests in Bangladesh

The two-day visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Bangladesh on March 25 and 26 has been marked by protests, strikes, clashes between Awami League supporters and the police on one hand and protesters on the others. Protests were spearheaded by Islamist and leftist parties which denounced the Indian Prime Minister’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riots and continued oppression on the minorities in India. They objected to the invitation extended to the Indian PM and pointed to the Indian ruling party’s aggression and alleged antipathy for Bangladesh.

The golden jubilee celebrations of the liberation of Bangladesh began on March 17 and concluded on March 26, observed as the Independence Day. Prime minister Narendra Modi attended the celebrations on the last two days. Other heads of state or government from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives had visited Dhaka on earlier days to attend the celebrations.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party declared on Saturday that it would hold two-day countrywide demonstrations on Monday and Tuesday, to protest against the killing of people on Independence Day on March 26. Chhatra Adhikar Parishad also protested the killings in police firing and expressed their solidarity with Sunday’s general strike called by Hefazat-e-Islam, a conservative Islamist organization.

Bangladesh Chhatra, Juba and Shramik Adhikar Parishad in a written statement claimed that at least eight persons were killed, 500 injured and 98 others arrested during the protests denouncing the visit of the Indian prime minister. Whereabouts of three of their leaders — Shakiluzzaman, Nadim Hasan and Mina Al Amin — remained unknown since Friday when they were picked by plainclothes during their visit to the national mausoleum, party insiders were quoted as saying by newspapers in Bangladesh.

On Saturday, five more people were killed in the bordering district of Brahmanbaria. Three people died on the spot in the Brahmanbaria town while two others were reportedly succumbed in the hospital. The five deaths in Chattogram and Brahmanbaria sparked a chain of protests by the Hafazat-e-Islam supporters and their sympathisers, and Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal and Juba Dal, and Islami Chhatra Shibir in Dhaka and elsewhere, on Friday and Saturday.

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