Four passengers including a child have been burnt alive in a bus set on fire at Mitthapukur in Rangpur by pro-blockade elements.
Published : 14 Jan 2015, 08:42 AM
Several other passengers have been hospitalised with various degrees of burns.
Mithapukur police station OC Rabiul Islam said the bus was on its way to Dhaka from Kurigram when it was set on fire late on Tuesday night.
Islam said pro-blockade elements threw a barricade on a road at Shapla Himaghar near Mitthapukur to stop the bus that belonged to 'Khalil Paribahan' around 1am past midnight.
It had picked up passengers from Ulipur in Kurigram.
The pro-blockade elements sprinkled petrol on the bus and set it on fire.
Islam said bodies of a man, two women and a child were found in the bus.
Six other passengers including a child, who sustained various degrees of burns, were admitted to the Rangpur Medical College, said its director Abdul Qader.
Police officials said that Mithapukur is a stronghold of the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student affiliate Islami Chhatra Shibir.
They had unleashed a reign of terror in that area after a war crimes tribunal awarded a death sentence to Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee on Feb 28, 2013.
At least seven persons died in clashes between Jamaat supporters and security forces at that time.
Later an appeals court revised Sayedee's sentence and gave him life imprisonment.