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200,000 people hold demo againist anti-Islamists in Bangladesh: Official

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Some 200,000 people have taken to the streets in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka to protest against what they call an anti-Islamic campaign led by a group of bloggers, police officials say.

“Around 200,000 people attended the rally,” said Dhaka’s deputy police commissioner Sheikh Nazmul Alam on Saturday.

Protesters demand the execution of the bloggers that they say have insulted Islam and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

“I have come here to fight for Islam. We won’t allow any bloggers to blaspheme our religion and our beloved Prophet Mohammed (PBUH),” said Shahidul Islam, an imam at a mosque outside Dhaka.

On February 24, at least three people were shot dead in a similar protest after Bangladesh police fired live rounds to break up crowds of angry protesters at Singair in the central district of Manikganj.

Tensions rose in the Muslim-majority nation over allegedly anti-Islamic blog posts by Ahmed Rajib Haider, who was killed in February near his home in Dhaka.

Meanwhile, supporters of the country’s largest Islamic party have been staging mass demonstrations calling for the release of the Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, including Abdul Quader Mollah, who the authorities accuse of committing murder and torture.

Mollah’s supporters have dismissed the allegations as politically motivated.

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