DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Hundreds of thousands attended the funeral Saturday of a leading Bangladeshi activist who died of a gunshot wound in an attack in Dhaka earlier this month, as political tensions grip the country ahead of an election.
Sharif Osman Hadi, who took part in last year’s political uprising that ended former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, was shot dead in Dhaka on December 12 and died in a Singapore hospital on Thursday.
Police said they had identified the suspect and that the gunman was likely to have fled to India, where Hasina is in exile. The development sparked a new diplomatic spat with India and prompted New Delhi to summon Bangladesh’s envoy this week. Bangladesh also summoned India’s envoy to Dhaka.
Security was tight in Dhaka on Saturday as funeral prayers were held outside the country’s parliament building.
Hadi’s body was repatriated on Friday evening and Saturday was declared a national day of mourning.
Hadi is a spokesman for the Inqilab Moncho cultural group, which said he will be buried on the Dhaka University campus alongside the grave of the country’s national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam.
Mourners carried Bangladeshi flags and chanted slogans such as “We will be Hadi and we will fight for decades” and “We will not let Hadi’s blood be shed in vain.”
News of his death sparked violence Thursday night, with a group of protesters attacking and burning the offices of two major national dailies. The country’s interim leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, urged people to remain calm.
Hadi is a fierce critic of neighboring India and Hasina, who has been in exile since fleeing Bangladesh on August 5, 2024. Hadi had planned to contest the next national election in February as an independent candidate in a key constituency in Dhaka.
Bangladesh is undergoing a critical transition under Yunus’ leadership to restore democracy through upcoming elections. But the government has been Hasina’s Awami League party, one of the two major political parties. ,
Hasina’s main rival, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, is another key party hoping to form the next government. Jamaat-e-Islami is the largest Islamic party in the country and has a dark history from the country’s 1971 war of independence. The party is leading an alliance to carve out a larger political space in the absence of Hasina’s party and its allies.
Hasina is sentenced to death for crimes against humanity, but India has yet to respond to repeated requests by the Yunus-led government for her extradition.