Bangladesh mourns slain activist as tensions rise ahead of elections

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DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people attended the funeral Saturday of a leading Bangladeshi activist who died of gunshot wounds sustained in an attack in Dhaka earlier this month, as political tensions gripped the country ahead of elections.

Sharif Osman Hadi, who took part in last year’s political uprising that ended former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, died in a hospital in Singapore on Thursday after being shot Dec. 12 in Dhaka.

Police said they had identified suspects and that the shooter had most probably fled to India, where Hasina has been in exile. The development sparked a new diplomatic squabble with India and prompted New Delhi this week to summon Bangladesh’s envoy. Bangladesh also summoned the Indian envoy to Dhaka.

Security was tight in Dhaka on Saturday as the funeral prayers were held outside the nation’s Parliament complex.

Hadi’s body returned on Friday night, and Saturday was declared a national mourning day.

Hadi was a spokesperson for the Inqilab Moncho culture group, which said he would be buried on the Dhaka University campus beside the country’s national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam.

Mourners carried Bangladesh flags and chanted slogans, such as “We will be Hadi, we will be fighting decades after decades,” and “We will not let Hadi’s blood go in vain.”

The news of his death on Thursday evening triggered violence, with groups of protesters attacking and torching the offices of two leading national dailies. The country’s interim leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has urged the people to stay calm.

Hadi was a fierce critic of both neighboring India and Hasina, who has been in exile since Aug. 5, 2024, when she fled Bangladesh. Hadi had planned to run as an independent candidate in a major constituency in Dhaka in the next national elections in February.

Bangladesh has been going through a critical transition under Yunus in a bid to return to democracy through the upcoming elections. But the government has been Hasina’s Awami League party, which is one of two major political parties. ,

Hasina’s archrival, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party is the other key party, which hopes to forms the next government. The Jamaat-e-Islami party, the country’s largest Islamist party with a dark history involving the nation’s independence war in 1971, is leading an alliance to carve out a bigger political space in the absence of Hasina’s party and its allies.

Hasina has been sentenced to death on charges of crimes against humanity, but India's has not responded to repeated requests by the Yunus-led government for her extradition.