DHAKA: Thousands of police were deployed Wednesday in Bangladesh after the main Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), chief leader was executed for alleged war crimes in 1971.
Jamaat-e-Islami president Motiur Rahman Nizami was hanged at Dhaka’s Central Jail late Tuesday, after the top court upheld his death sentence, reports said.
Nizami, a 73-year-old former government minister, was the fifth the most senior opposition figure executed since the secular government set up a controversial war crimes tribunal in 2010.
Police erected checkposts on major Dhaka roads to deter violent protests and officers and the elite Rapid Action Battalion were patrolling the capital, officials said.
“Several thousand policemen have been deployed in the capital as part of the stepped up security measures,” Dhaka police spokesman Maruf Hossain Sorder told AFP.
Security was also tight in Nizami’s northwestern ancestral district of Pabna after his body was taken under armed escort overnight for burial in the family graveyard.
“At least 16 activists of Jamaat were arrested Tuesday night as part of the security clampdown,” Pabna police inspector Ahsanul Haq told AFP.
Jamaat has called a nationwide strike for Thursday in protest over Nizami’s execution.
A major crackdown over orders of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government started that has seen tens of thousands of Jamaat supporters arrested and detained.
