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Six Killed, 100 Injured In Bangladesh Clashes
DHAKA, Feb 6 (News Agencies) - At least six people were killed and 100 others injured Tuesday in fierce clashes between police and Muslim protestors in Bangladesh's eastern district of Brahmanbaria, a local reporter said.
It took the toll to nine since violence first erupted Saturday over a court verdict banning the use of fatwas, or religious edicts, by Muslim clerics, with hospital officials saying the toll might rise further.
Local police confirmed five deaths.
Home Minister Mohammad Nasim told reporters a major in the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) was hit by a bullet and a policeman had his arm cut off by activists in Brahmanbaria.
"Those responsible will be dealt with severely in line with the country's law," he said.
The reporter said one person was killed instantly during a shoot-out with police, who used rubber bullets, as fierce clashes erupted during a one-day protest strike called in the district.
The protestors used guns and stones during the clashes, witnesses said.
"The situation is tense after nearly three hours of face-to-face clashes between the two sides during which police used guns and tear gas," the reporter said.
"Some of the dead were killed in crossfire," he said from the scene of the violence.
The town's main police station also came under attack, local residents said.
The clashes left more than 100 injured, including policemen, witnesses said, adding at least five journalists were injured and harassed by both sides.
The private Ekushey Television said the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of ex-premier Khaleda Zia and jailed ex-president Hussain Muhamad Ershad's faction of the Jatiya Party (JP) had joined in the violence.
An immediate strike had been called in the district Tuesday following the arrest of two leaders from the right wing Islami Oikkya Jote (IOJ) opposition party, a member of the four-party alliance led by the BNP and includes JP and the Jamaat-i-Islami party.
Train services between Dhaka and the southeastern port city of Chittagong and northeastern tea-growing Syleht district were snapped, a spokesman for the state-run Bangladesh Railway said after station staff had been threatened.
The Bangladesh opposition alliance has called for a further nationwide general strike Wednesday.
It is also demanding a full judicial inquiry into the death of a policeman, who was one of three people killed during a rally in Dhaka Saturday against the court ban on fatwas.
Among those arrested on Sunday and Monday were Shaikul Hadish Moulana Azizul Huq and Moulana Fazlul Huq Amini, chief and general secretary of the IOJ.
Police said the Dhaka mosque in which the policeman was allegedly murdered by Muslim protestors was under Huq's charge.
Amini was held for allegedly ordering the hanging of the two judges, including Bangladesh's first female High Court judge, who passed the anti-fatwa ruling, police said.
Security services began a wave of arrests following Saturday's clashes between Muslim demonstrators and police in Dhaka, in which two other people died, reportedly after explosives they were carrying went off.
The use of fatwas, sometimes draconian edicts issued by local village clerics solely on their religious authority, is a deeply controversial one in Bangladesh.
In the early 1990s, a young woman was stoned to death for an alleged "illegal" love affair, while this year an investigation has begun into claims 4,000 women from 12 villages were barred from voting for 85 years by religious order.
The human rights group, Amnesty International, had hailed January's High Court ruling banning fatwas as a "landmark verdict."
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