Staff Reporter :
Tension reigned throughout Dhaka’s Dhanmondi-32 area on Monday as clashes between law enforcement and a group of youths continued from midday.
By 5:30pm, intermittent chase-and-counter-chase incidents were still unfolding.
The youths, identifying themselves as the “July Fighters,” attempted around 12:30pm to force their way into the historic Dhanmondi-32 residence of the late President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the architect of Bangladesh’s independence. They arrived with two bulldozers in an apparent bid to ram through the entrance. The attempt coincided with the announcement of a verdict against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a case concerning alleged crimes against humanity during last year’s July Uprising.
The group began marching from the Dhaka College area at around noon, moving toward Dhanmondi-32 with the bulldozers and gathering near the eastern end of the road toward Mirpur Road. When they tried to break through a police barricade at around 1pm, both police and army personnel intervened to push them back, prompting the group to retreat.
Soon after, the activists regrouped at the Panthapath intersection, where they hurled bricks at security forces, injuring two policemen. To regain control of the situation, police deployed sound grenades to disperse the crowd.
Meanwhile, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 delivered its judgment, sentencing former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal to death in a case linked to crimes against humanity during the July-August mass uprising last year.
The three-member tribunal, headed by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Majumder, pronounced the verdict. In addition, former Inspector General of Police Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun-who had testified as a state witness-was handed a five-year prison term.
