Dhaka:
Hundreds of hardline Islamists have been arrested by Bangladesh police more than the previous week, officials stated Sunday, soon after deadly protests against the check out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
At least 13 protesters died in the course of the days-lengthy demonstrations in late March more than Modi.
The protests across numerous districts in Bangladesh had been mainly led by the hardline Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam, whose members accused Modi of stoking communal violence against Muslims in India.
Police stated Mamunul Haque, 47, the firebrand joint secretary of Hefazat, was detained on Sunday soon after a best Islamic seminary in the capital Dhaka was raided.
“He was arrested over charges of violence by Hefazat-e-Islam,” police spokesman Ifetkharul Islam told AFP.
Haque was the seventh senior leader from Hefazat to be arrested this week, police stated.
The leaders had been anticipated to be charged with the outbreak of violence in the course of the anti-Modi protests and demonstrations in 2013 that left practically 50 individuals dead.
A additional 298 Hefazat supporters and activists had been arrested in the eastern rural district of Brahmanbaria exactly where anti-Modi demonstrations had been also held, police stated Sunday.
“We arrested them by identifying them through video footage,” Brahmanbaria police’s deputy chief, Mohammad Roish Uddin, told AFP.
Hefazat spokesman Jakaria Noman Foyezi told AFP that 23 leaders of his organisation had been detained by police.
He known as police claims against them “false and fabricated”.
Hefazat, which was discovered in 2010, is Bangladesh’s biggest hardline Islamist outfit.
The group draws its assistance from millions of students and teachers in thousands of the Muslim-majority madrasas.
A 2013 rally in Dhaka by thousands of Hefazat supporters demanding a blasphemy law ended in unrest and dozens of deaths.