DHAKA, Dec 20: Bangladesh held the funeral of 32-year-old youth leader Sharif Osman Hadi on Saturday, drawing large crowds to the capital amid tight security following nationwide unrest triggered by his death.
Hadi, spokesperson of the radical right-wing cultural group ‘Inqilab Mancha’ and a candidate in the upcoming February 12 general elections, was shot in the head on December 12 during an election campaign in Dhaka’s Bijoynagar area and later died in Singapore.
His funeral prayers (janaza) were conducted at the South Plaza of the Parliament complex and attended by interim government Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, his advisory council, Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman, and politicians from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islami, and National Citizen Party (NCP).
Hadi was buried beside National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam at Dhaka University, under strict security, with tens of thousands participating in the prayers.
Following the burial, his party issued a 24-hour ultimatum to the interim government demanding “visible progress” in arresting those responsible, warning of renewed sit-in protests.
Hadi had gained prominence as a leader of last year’s student-led protests that led to the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government.
His death sparked violent unrest across the country, including attacks on Indian diplomatic properties, vandalism at newspaper offices, and the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum.
A Hindu man was also lynched over alleged blasphemy in Mymensingh during the turmoil. The interim government condemned the violence and urged citizens to resist acts by “fringe elements.”
Hadi’s rise to political prominence was marked by his leadership of the radical right-wing cultural group ‘Inqilab Mancha,’ which emerged after the July Uprising led by the Students Against Discrimination (SAD) campaign.
His assassination and the subsequent protests have intensified political tensions in Bangladesh, highlighting the volatile environment ahead of the general elections.
10 arrested over Hindu man’s lynching in B’desh
STen people have been arrested in connection with the lynching of a Hindu man in Bangladesh, Chief Adviser of the interim government Muhammad Yunus announced Saturday.
Dipu Chandra Das, a 25-year-old garment factory worker, was lynched to death by a mob and his body set on fire over alleged blasphemy in Baluka in Mymensingh on Thursday.
Of the 10, seven were arrested by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) while three were arrested by the police as suspects in the case, Yunus said in a statement on X.
The RAB and police conducted operations in various locations to arrest these individuals, he said.
The arrests were made during operations at various locations, and the ages of those arrested ranged from 19 to 46.
According to the police, Das was first beaten up by a mob outside the factory over blasphemy allegations and hanged from a tree.
The crowd then left the body of the deceased on the side of the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway and later set it on fire.
The police recovered the body and sent it to the Mymensingh Medical College morgue for autopsy.
The interim government on Friday condemned the lynching, saying there is no space for such violence in the new Bangladesh.
“The perpetrators of this heinous crime will not be spared,” the interim government said in a statement.
The Hindu population in Bangladesh has faced a series of anti-minority incidents across the country after the ouster of the then prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August last year. (PTI)
