DHAKA Bangladesh police have arrested a regional leader and scores of student members of the countrys main Islamic party after an activist for the ruling Awami League party was killed during a clash at a major university, officials and media reports said Friday, reported AP.
Police on Tuesday recovered the body of 23-year-old Faruk Hossain from an underground sewage drain at Rajshahi University after an overnight fight between Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of the countrys largest Islamic party, the opposition-linked Jamaat-e-Islami, and Bangladesh Chhatra League, which belongs to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas Awami League.
Chhatra League said Hossain was one of its activists and that members of Islami Chhatra Shibir had hacked him to death. About 50 people including police were injured in the violence.
Police said Hossains body bore stabbing marks. Four critically injured Chhatra League activists alleged that they were attacked by Islami Chhatra Shibir members.
The violence erupted after two members of the rival groups fought Monday over a students attempt to take a room in a crowded dormitory.
The ruling party blamed Islami Chhatra Shibir and Jamaat-e-Islami for the violence in Rajshahi, 235 kilometers northwest of Dhaka.
The Daily Star newspaper reported Friday that police have arrested at least 65 Islami Chhatra Shibir members nationwide since Hossains death.
Police in Rajshahi on Thursday arrested Ataur Rahman, the regional chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, on charges of instigating the violence that led to Hossains death, police official Nawsher Ali said.
Rahman denied the allegation and said the arrest was political harassment, the Prothom Alo newspaper reported.
Jamaat-e-Islami, a key partner of opposition leader Khaleda Zias Bangladesh Nationalist Party, also denied the allegations and said Hossain died during an internal fight among members of the ruling partys student wing.
Nasim Uddin, a police official in Dhaka, said 21 Islami Chhatra Shibir activists were arrested at a hostel near Dhaka University early Friday.
We have arrested them since we came to know that they were meeting there to create chaos, Uddin told reporters. Were interrogating them for clues.
Islami Chhatra Shibir dominates many colleges and universities across the country, and Jamaat-e-Islami is considered a hard-line rival of the Awami League.
Their long-drawn animosity is rooted before 1971, when Bangladesh won independence from Pakistan after nine months of war, aided by India. Jamaat-e-Islami opposed the independence struggle while Awami Leagues Sheikh Mujibur Rahman led the war.
Violence on campuses in Bangladesh is common, as the student wings of political parties try to dominate educational institutions for control over mostly nonacademic matters such as building renovation projects and procurement of laboratory equipment, for which they take money from contractors.
Mainstream political parties also use their student wings to establish dominance in national politics.
