DHAKA
\nAround 50,000 people attended Tuesday\u2019s funeral Jamaat-e-Islami leader in Bangladesh, police said, after news of his death while he was in prison for war crimes prompted violent anti-government protests.
\nDelwar Hossain Sayedee, 83, was sentenced to death in 2013 for rape, murder and the persecution of Hindu Bangladeshis during the country\u2019s independence war decades earlier.
\nHe died on Monday after suffering a heart attack in a prison outside Dhaka, prompting protests in the capital that turned violent when police moved in to disperse them.
\nHeavy police security guarded a funeral prayer at Sayedee\u2019s hometown in coastal Pirojpur district where a huge crowd gathered to watch his body be laid to rest.
\n\u201cSome 50,000 people joined the funeral prayer,\u201d deputy district police chief Sheikh Mustafizur Rahman told AFP, adding that the burial took place without incident.
\nBut elsewhere in the country, one person was killed during a confrontation between police and a group attempting to hold a memorial ceremony for Sayedee.
\n\u201cThey gathered and wanted to hold a funeral prayer, stoking a clash between them and police,\u201d Chakaria duty police officer Md. Selim Mia told AFP.
\n\u201cOne person has died and some more have been injured including our policemen.\u201d
\nSayedee was vice president of the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami party, a political group with a huge following despite being banned for much of its history.
\nThe party remains controversial for supporting Bangladesh\u2019s continued union with Pakistan during the former country\u2019s brutal 1971 liberation war.
\nSayedee shot to prominence in the 1980s after he started preaching in some of the Muslim-majority nation\u2019s top mosques.
\nIn his heyday, he would draw hundreds of thousands to his speeches, recordings of which were widely distributed.
\nHis conviction a decade ago by a war crimes tribunal — criticised by rights groups for several procedural shortcomings — triggered the deadliest protests in Bangladesh\u2019s history, with at least 100 people killed in the clashes that followed.
\nJamaat said tens of thousands of its supporters were arrested in a subsequent crackdown, and the party was only this year permitted to stage public demonstrations again.
\nNews of Sayedee\u2019s death on Monday night brought thousands of Jamaat supporters to the streets chanting anti-government slogans.
\nPolice dispersed protests with rubber bullets and tear gas before dawn on Tuesday, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) spokesman Faruk Hossain told AFP. The police force said it had rejected an application by Jamaat to hold a post-funeral prayer in the capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DHAKA Around 50,000 people attended Tuesday\u2019s funeral Jamaat-e-Islami leader in Bangladesh, police said, after news of his death while he was in prison for war crimes prompted violent anti-government protests. Delwar Hossain Sayedee, 83, was sentenced to death in 2013 for rape, murder and the persecution of Hindu Bangladeshis during the country\u2019s independence war decades […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349755,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-349738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n