DHAKA, Sept 21: Street clashes broke out in Bangladesh on Friday as Islamic activists defied emergency rule to protest over the publication in a major newspaper of a cartoon deemed offensive to Muslims.

Thousands of protesters joined the rally in the centre of the capital Dhaka, a photographer at the scene said, even though demonstrations are strictly prohibited under the country’s eight-month-old state of emergency.

Police baton-charged some of the activists as they tried to break through barricades put up to prevent them reaching the offices of Prothom Alo, the newspaper that published the cartoon and Bangladesh’s biggest daily paper.

Demonstrators chanted slogans demanding the execution of newspaper editor Matiur Rahman and burned effigies of him and copies of the Bengali-language daily.—AFP