Tight security was imposed today in Bangladesh with a 48-hour nationwide general strike called by fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party to protest against death sentences to its top leaders accused of war crimes.
Police said Jamaat activists set off a dozen crude bombs and staged stormy processions in the capital in their bid to protect their leaders from the gallows and the party from a possible ban.
They said at least two Jamaat activists were jailed for six months as authorities instituted mobile courts to conduct summary trials against troublemakers while several others were detained as the shutdown began early this morning.
Jamaat had called the nationwide shutdown protesting what it called "government repression, persecution and plot to eliminate the party" and "to kill our jailed leaders" under allegedly false cases.
"We are making a clarion call to observe the nationwide general strike to protest the blueprint to kill the jailed top Jamaat leaders," the party said in a statement.
The trials of the accused for war crimes committed during the 1971 liberation war has so far seen indictment of over a dozen mostly Jamaat leaders who were found guilty of genocide or mass murder and siding with invading Pakistani troops during the war.
Four leaders have been handed down death penalty with jail terms for others.
The trials were welcomed by hundreds of thousands of students and anti-war protesters who wanted justice for the atrocities committed during the war.
But the verdicts against Jamaat leaders also plunged the country into political violence with some 150 killed in clashes pitting the activists of the extreme rightwing party against security forces since the first sentence was awarded in January this year.
The shutdown came as the trial of the accused neared the final stage while the government sought to stop the party from approaching the Supreme Court.
The High Court last month ordered the Jamaat be stripped of its registration with the Election Commission while a special tribunal trying the war criminals earlier dubbed it a "criminal organisation" for its role in the war.
