A top leader of a radical outfit, demanding a tougher blasphemy law in Bangladesh, was remanded to police custody today in connection with raging violence that claimed 28 lives, even as the opposition called a two-day national shutdown to protest crackdown on marauding Islamists.
The Hefazat-e-Islam or 'Protectorate of Islam' unleashed riots on Dhaka streets since Sunday to mount pressure on the secular Awami League-led government to implement its 13-point demand, including the enactment of a blasphemy law to punish those who insult Islam and its Prophet.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led 18 party alliance, with the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami being a major partner, called for two days of general strike from tomorrow to protest, what they said were 'atrocities' on Hefazat activists, comprising mainly of unregistered madrasa students.
Hefazat Cultural Secretary Ashraf Ali Nizampuri said his outfit was extending support to the May 8, 9 shutdown called by the BNP. He also warned that Hefazat would start a tougher agitation programmes if its leaders and activists are not freed by May 12.
Earlier in the day, a Dhaka court sent Hifazat Secretary General Junaid Babu Nagari on a 10-day police remand in connection with a case filed over violence unleashed by the conservative outfit in Dhaka's Motijheel area on Sunday.
Babunagari has been arrested here yesterday minutes after Hefazat's veteran supremo Allama Ahmad Shafi was sent back to his hometown Chittagong.
Meanwhile, miscreants torched five bogies of a train in the port city of Chittagong.
