Bangladesh political rallies sparked clashes as election tensions rose resulting in the death of a Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) activist and a policeman and left many others injured on Saturday, Dhaka Tribune reported.

Bangladesh’s major political parties BNP and Awami League held protests with scattered violence ahead of expected elections in January 2024.

A police constable was killed in a clash with supporters of the BNP in the Fakirapool area. The dead police personnel has been identified as Aminul Parvez, a constable of DMP’s CTTC unit, according to a Dhaka Tribune report.

The dead has been identified as Shamim Mollah, president of ward-7 Mugda Thana Jubo Dal. BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said that Shamim was injured in police firing. According to the BNP leader, he was taken to the Central Police Hospital in critical condition, where the doctors pronounced him dead.

Meanwhile, police said Shamim Mollah died of a heart attack. Central Police Hospital Director Deputy Inspector General of Police Rezaul Haider said that there was no sign of injury on his body. He is believed to have died of a heart attack, according to a Dhaka Tribune report.

“In the afternoon when chase and counter chase was taking place between police and BNP men in front of the hospital, the man was passing through the road in front of the hospital. At one stage, he fell unconscious on the road,” Rezaul said.

He added, “After the situation calmed down, some people rescued him from there and brought him to the hospital. Then the doctor on duty declared him dead.”

Opposition party supporters were demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the transfer of power to a non-partisan caretaker government to oversee general elections next year. The protesters demanded that a free and fair vote under a neutral government should be allowed.

The BNP had organised its rally in front of its headquarters to demand for elections under a non-partisan interim government. Meanwhile, the Awami League held its “peace and development rally” at Baitul Mukarram’s south gate to counter the BNP’s.

Since morning, BNP leaders and activists started thronging the rally venue and shouted anti-government slogans. The entire road between the Kakrail intersection to Notre Dame College in Arambagh was packed with party activists and supporters.

Tensions flared up around 11:30 am (local time) when the ruling party activists on two pickups and a bus were stopped by BNP activists near Kakrail mosque, The Daily Star reported. The activists of Awami League were heading towards the Baitul Mukarram mosque to attend their rally, according to police and witnesses.

Clashes erupted after the BNP activists vandalised the pickups and the bus. Police present at the spot detained one man involved in vandalism, they said. After the clash, more BNP activists rushed to the spot and were seen intercepting pedestrians. Dozens of people, including law enforcers, BNP activists and journalists were injured in the clashes.

At least 10 vehicles and a police box were torched and over a dozen vehicles were vandalised during the clashes that took place in Kakrail, Nayapaltan, Bijoynagar, Malibagh, Arambagh areas and near Matsya Bhaban, according to The Daily Star report.

Law enforcers fired teargas shells, threw sound grenades and used firearms to disperse the BNP leaders and activists who had gathered at Nayapaltan and nearby areas since morning, according to The Daily Star report. Later at night, three more vehicles were torched by arsonists in the Kalshi area of Dhaka city, Hemayetpur in Savar, and Konabari in Gazipur, according to police.

US fighter jets on Saturday “scrambled” after a civilian aircraft violated restricted airspace in Delaware. At the time, US President Joe Biden was present at his home in Wilmington, Fox News reported citing Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the United States Secret Service.

The civilian aircraft entered restricted airspace north of Wilmington shortly after 2 pm (local time), Mr Guglielmi said. He said the fighter jets were scrambled “as a precaution” and the plane landed safely at a nearby airport.

“Shortly after 2 pm, a civilian aircraft violated restricted airspace north of Wilmington, Delaware,” Guglielmi said, according to a Fox News report.

He said that the movement of the US President was not affected. Agents from the Secret Service and the Federal Aviation Administration have started an investigation into the incident, Fox News reported.

The US Army reservist who sprayed a bowling alley and bar with gunfire this week in Lewiston, Maine, killing 18 people, took his own life inside a cargo trailer parked on the lot of a recycling plant where he once worked, police said on Saturday.

Robert R. Card, 40, was found dead on Friday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said late Friday night. The announcement, after a 48-hour search for the suspect in the most lethal act of firearms violence in the state’s history, brought a sense of relief to Lewiston and other southern Maine communities plunged into a virtual lockdown during the manhunt.

At a news briefing on Saturday, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck revealed that a state police tactical team had found Card’s corpse in an unlocked shipping container parked on one of dozens of tractor-trailer rigs occupying an overflow lot of the recycling plant.

Police had combed the plant twice before, as Card was believed to have worked there in the past, Sauschuck said. But searchers had initially overlooked the extra parking lot, occupied by 60 cargo trailers full of crushed plastic and metal, the commissioner said.

From Carnage To Normalcy

Card’s body was dressed in what appeared to be the same brown sweatshirt a surveillance camera caught him wearing the night of the attack. Investigators would not say how long they believed Card had been dead.

The recycling facility is in the nearby town of Lisbon Falls, less than a mile from the spot where police found Card’s abandoned getaway vehicle shortly after the shooting spree.

A total of 18 people were killed and 13 others wounded in Wednesday night’s carnage, which began when the gunman opened fire with a rifle inside the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley. He launched another attack minutes later at Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant a few miles away.

Thirteen others were wounded, three of them still in critical condition, Sauschuck said on Saturday.

The shootings and prolonged manhunt convulsed the normally bustling but serene community of Lewiston. A former textile hub and the second-most populous city in Maine, it is situated on the banks of the Androscoggin River about 35 miles (56 km) north of the state’s largest city, Portland.

The murder investigation continued, and vigils were planned to honour the shooting victims on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

Still, by Saturday afternoon, a measure of normalcy was restored to the postcard-like New England city. Residents were out shopping, children played on quiet, leafy streets, and Bates College students were jogging around campus after two days of shelter-in-place orders rendered the community a ghost town.

Note To Loved One

Officials said they recovered a rifle in Card’s abandoned white Subaru and two guns on his body. All the weapons were apparently purchased by Card legally, a representative for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said.

Officials have yet to offer a possible motive for the violence, though Sauschuck elaborated on a note that police previously said they found at Card’s house. They said it was addressed by the suspect to a loved one and listed the passcode to Card’s phone and bank account information.

“I wouldn’t describe it as an explicit suicide note, but the tone and tenor was that the individual was not going to be around,” he said.

Sauschuck said investigators had determined the tragedy had “a mental health component”. He cited evidence Card suffered from paranoia and “felt like people were talking about him,” factors that might have led him to target the venues he attacked.

A Maine law enforcement bulletin circulated this week identified Card as a trained firearms instructor at the US Army Reserve base in Saco, Maine. It said he had reported hearing voices and had other mental health issues.

He also had threatened to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco and was “reported to have been committed to [a] mental health facility for two weeks during summer 2023 and subsequently released,” according to the bulletin from the Maine Information & Analysis Center, a unit of Maine State Police.

Sauschuck said on Saturday that officials had no evidence that Card was ever “forcibly committed” for mental illness treatment, and were still looking into any voluntary treatment he may have received.

Navy veteran Phil Bickett, 82, out buying groceries in Lewiston on Saturday, said he was grateful that the manhunt was over but frustrated the suspect would never face justice.

“I hate to see him taking himself out because there’s no real justice in shooting yourself,” Bickett said. “Anyway, it’s over. That’s a good thing.”