DHAKA, Feb 22: Bangladesh police fired live rounds on Friday in fierce clashes with Islamists demanding the execution of bloggers they accused of blasphemy, killing at least four people and injuring about 200.

Two people were shot dead in the northwestern town of Palashbari, and two others died elsewhere, police said. Parts of the capital Dhaka were turned into a battlefield as thousands of protesters attacked police with bricks and sticks in front of the main mosque. Officers there retaliated with rubber bullets and tear gas.

The country’s 12 Islamic parties called the protests after Friday prayers in nearly half a million mosques nationwide, demanding the execution of bloggers who they accused of committing blasphemy.

Tensions have risen in the nation over alleged anti-Islamic blogs posted by Ahmed Rajib Haider, who was hacked to death last week near his home in Dhaka.

Mr Haider and fellow bloggers had launched huge protests demanding a ban on the largest Islamic party, Jamaat-i-Islami, and the execution of its leaders for alleged war crimes in 1971.

Since Mr Haider’s death, Bangladeshi social media have been flooded with his alleged blog posts and with those by other bloggers mocking Islamic parties, triggering protests by a number of groups and clerics.

In Palashbari at least 4,000 Islamists attacked police with home-made bombs and sticks, prompting officers to respond with live fire, district police chief Nahidul Islam said. A dozen people were injured including five policemen, he added.

In the northeastern city of Sylhet a young man died as police fired rubber bullets and tear gas after protesters went on a rampage, attacking and torching vehicles, Sylhet metropolitan police commissioner Nibas Chandra Majhi said.

Uzzal Dutta, an emergency doctor at the City hospital, said 31 people were admitted    and most had injuries from rubber bullets.

One person was killed in the western district of Jhenidah.

Police said clashes also broke out in the port city of Chittagong, the northern city of Bogra where 15,000 protesters attacked law-enforcers, and dozens of other cities and towns where police fired rubber bullets and tear gas.

About 200 people were injured nationwide, police and doctors said.

In Dhaka violence broke out outside the Baitul Mukarram mosque, where protesters also attacked around a dozen journalists.

Police tried to thwart the protest by locking the gates of the mosque where tens of thousands of people were offering their Juma prayers, a photographer at the scene said.

Sayeed Khan, an emergency doctor at Dhaka medical college hospital, said that up to 50 people had been admitted, most with injuries from rubber bullets. “Several cases are very critical,” he said.—AFP