Two demonstrators were killed and more than 20 police injured in Bangladesh on Monday as officers fought to control a crowd of 10,000 people protesting over the disappearance of opposition leader Ilias Ali. Police said mobs armed with sticks and stones set fire to a local council building and attacked a police station in Sylhet city, home to Ali, a prominent Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) figure who has been missing for six days. “There were more than 10,000 protesters. They attacked policemen and tried to besiege a police station. We fired rubber bullets and tear-gas shells to disperse them,” Shakhawat Hossain, police chief of Sylhet, told AFP. He added that a 25-year-old man was killed and more than 20 police officers were injured, four of them seriously. Abul Kalam Azad, a doctor at Sylhet’s Osmani Medical College Hospital, said police also brought in the dead body of a 22-year-old protester. Local media said at least 100 people had been hurt in the violence, and reported that police had used live rounds to break up the protests. Rights groups have blamed Bangladeshi security agencies for the disappearance of dozens of opposition activists over the past two years, alleging the victims have been abducted on government orders.
