December 05, 2008	Friday	Zilhaj 6, 1429

DHAKA, Dec 4: The leader of a Bangladeshi political party and a key ally of ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed died on Thursday following a fire in his home that his party says was suspicious.

The death of Ganotontree (Democratic) Party president Nurul Islam, 68, comes as the South Asian nation prepares to hold elections on Dec 29 to restore a democratically-elected government after almost two years of emergency rule.

A day before his death, Islam told reporters from his hospital bed he had been threatened by Islamic hardliners after he was nominated to stand in elections as part of a 14-party alliance led by Sheikh Hasina’s left-of-centre Awami League.

“After I was nominated, unidentified Islamist militants had been intimidating me and my son over the telephone, asking me not to contest the polls,” Islam said on Wednesday.

Islam died of kidney failure after suffering extensive burns.

His 36-year-old son Tamohar Islam died in the fire, which broke out in their family home in the capital early Wednesday.

Ganotontree Party president Azizul Islam Khan told reporters earlier on Thursday the government should hold an inquiry into the fire.

“Islam was being intimidated by outsiders for quite some time. We demand that the government take steps to initiate an inquiry into the fire,” he said.

Fire officials were quoted by local media as saying they could not rule out electrical failure as a cause of the blaze.

The elections later this month will be the first in Bangladesh in seven years.

The military-backed government has been in power since January 2007, when, after months of political violence between supporters of the ruling BNP and the Awami League, the army stepped in, imposed emergency rule and cancelled polls.

Over the past two years the government has pushed through electoral and political reforms, including a crackdown on corruption.

It also created a new high-tech voter list which authorities say has eliminated more than 12.7 million fake voters in the country’s notoriously corrupt political system.—AFP