Death toll rises as protests enters fifth day

Continuing hostilities across the country left at least three people dead and dozens injured.

The casualties raised the death toll to 61 from rioting triggered by the death sentence handed down to Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee last Thursday.

Rampaging supporters of Mr Sayedee attacked police and government offices, uprooted railway tracks and set fire to trains and houses belonging to government supporters.

Police responded with bullets and tear gas.

Paramilitary border guards in the southern town of Kolaroa shot dead two people as a group of around 1,000 protesters tried to attack them with sticks and bricks and in the north-western town of Ullapara a protester died on the way to hospital after police fired on hundreds of Islamists demanding a halt to the trials.

In Dhaka, a small homemade bomb exploded outside a hotel where visiting Indian President Pranab Mukherjee was staying.

Police said no-one was hurt in the blast and President Mukherjee was not in the hotel when the explosion occurred.

And protesters set fire to two coaches on an empty train today parked at Dhaka's main railway station.

Schools and businesses were shut across Bangladesh again on the second day of the general strike.

The main road between the capital Dhaka and Chittagong was virtually deserted, as were other intercity highways.

Security has been strengthened throughout the country, particularly in Dhaka where around 10,000 police and members of the elite Rapid Action Battalion were on duty.

As part of their protests, the Islamists have blocked a road leading to the popular Cox's Bazaar tourist region, where several hundred holidaymakers have been trapped.

Prosecutors have put 12 people on trial, including 11 opposition politicians belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami and its main ally, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

Mr Sayedee was found guilty of murder, religious persecution and rape during the 1971 independence war against Pakistan.

But Jamaat claims that the process is merely an attempt by the ruling party to settle scores.