A policeman was killed and at least 50 people injured Saturday in clashes between police and Muslim hardliners during a one-day general strike here, witnesses and police said.
In Dhaka's Mohammadpur area Muslim rebels killed a policeman, whose body was found inside a Mosque, a local reporter at the scene said.
The policeman died and at least 20 people were hurt after officers intervened to break up a clash between the Muslim activists and a counter-demonstration supporting a recent court decision to outlaw Muslim religious edicts, or fatwas, in the country.
The strike had been called by Muslim groups to protest at the ban.
The officer reportedly suffered a head injury, but it was not immediately clear how he died.
In another incident, police fired tear gas and used batons when Muslim protestors tried to block a major highway in the nearby Tongi area before Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed travelled through, local police told AFP.
Around 20 people were injured in the incident.
The Muslim activists also clashed with police in Dhaka's Postogola area and were dispersed after being charged with tear gas, leaving another 10 hurt, witnesses said.
They had tried to block entry points to Dhaka early Saturday to stop thousands coming to the capital from across Bangladesh to join a pro-democracy and anti-fatwa rally organised mainly by non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
However the rally had gone ahead, and was attended by Bangladesh's top poet Shamsur Rahman among others.
Khushi Kabir, chief of the Association for Development Agencies in Bangladesh (ADAB), which groups the majority of the NGOs in the country, said the protest was not anti-Muslim.
"This rally is not against Allah or Islam, but was aimed at uprooting those who do business and politics using religion," she told AFP.
The Islamic activists have vehemently criticised the government and judiciary for allegedly trying to interfere with Islam following last month's anti-fatwa verdict.
The court decision banned the use of fatwas, sometimes draconian edicts issued by local village clerics solely on their religious authority in a country where many people are very religious-minded.
Rights groups and other organizations had welcomed the January 1 High Court ruling by Judges Golam Rabbani and Nazmun Ara Sultana, the country's first female High Court judge.
International rights watchdog Amnesty International hailed the court ruling as a "landmark verdict."
The decision was, however, put on temporary hold for six weeks on January 14 by the Supreme Court following an appeal.
The most grisly example of a fatwa being issued was the stoning to death of a young woman in the early 1990s for an alleged "illegal" love affair.
The Election Commission has additionally been investigating allegations that 4,000 women from 12 villages in the western district of Jhenidah were barred from voting for 85 years due to a religious edict -- DHAKA (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
