Highway blockade erupts over Islami Andolan leader`s killing

Activists and supporters of Islami Andolan Bangladesh staged a fiery blockade of the Dhaka--Chittagong highway on Friday, demanding the immediate arrest and exemplary punishment of all those implicated in the brutal murder of Jahid Hasan Bulbul, a rickshaw-garage proprietor and local leader of the Islami Jubo Andolan, in Narayanganj's Bandar upazila.

The demonstration erupted at approximately 9:30 a.m. near Madanpur, where scores of protesters occupied the strategic thoroughfare for nearly an hour, bringing traffic to a virtual standstill. Demonstrators voiced impassioned demands for a thorough investigation and uncompromising accountability, insisting that every perpetrator be swiftly apprehended and subjected to condign punishment. Law enforcement officials eventually arrived at the scene and, through sustained negotiation, persuaded the crowd to disperse, after which vehicular movement gradually resumed its normal rhythm.

According to Shamim Sheikh, officer-in-charge of Kanchpur Highway Police Station, the protesters vacated the highway after roughly an hour of tense negotiation, restoring the corridor to its customary flow of traffic. Jamal Hossain, officer-in-charge of Bandar Police Station, corroborated this account, confirming that Sifat, identified as the principal suspect in the killing, had already been apprehended on Thursday night -- a development officials cited in their efforts to placate the aggrieved demonstrators.

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The unrest was precipitated by a harrowing incident on Thursday night, when Bulbul, 45, was fatally attacked in the Salehnagar locality of Bandar. Residents allege that Sifat, described as the ringleader of a local juvenile gang, along with several accomplices, ambushed Bulbul and inflicted grievous wounds upon him with bladed weapons. Bystanders rushed the critically injured man to Narayanganj's 100-bed General Hospital, where attending physicians pronounced him dead upon arrival, his death igniting the wave of indignation that would later spill onto the nation's busiest highway.