Police in Bangladesh on Thursday fired rubber bullets and tear gas at more than 5,000 activists from the main opposition party protesting the “disappearance” of a top official. Police said scores of people were injured in clashes between activists and law-enforcers that turned the roads leading to the headquarters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) into a battlefield. BNP supporters were protesting the “disappearance” of senior official Ilias Ali, as well as the party’s north-east regional chief, whose car was found abandoned on Tuesday night in a wealthy district of Dhaka. “There were more than 5,000 protesters. They hurled at least 11 small bombs and also rained down stones and bricks at us, forcing us to fire rubber bullets and tear gas shells,” police sub-inspector Rafiqul Islam told AFP.
