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DHAKA: Violence broke out in Bangladesh’s capital early on Friday (Dec 19) after a youth leader of the country’s 2024 pro-democracy uprising who was injured in an assassination attempt died in a hospital in Singapore.<\/p>\n
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Dhaka after the death of Sharif Osman Hadi, 32, was announced, to demand that his killers be arrested.<\/p>\n
Several buildings in the capital, including those housing the country’s two leading newspapers, were set on fire, according to authorities, with staff trapped inside.<\/p>\n
Hadi was a key figure in last year’s uprising that ended the autocratic rule of prime minister Sheikh Hasina and sent her fleeing to India. He was running for a parliament seat in the February 2026 national election.<\/p>\n
On Dec 12, Hadi was shot by masked assailants as he was leaving a mosque in Dhaka. He was airlifted to a hospital in Singapore for treatment, where he succumbed to his injuries on Thursday.<\/p>\n
At least three cases of arson were reported in Dhaka after the news of his death spread, a spokesperson for the Fire Brigade and Civil Defence force told AFP, including a fire at the Daily Star building and another at a building housing the Prothom Alo newspaper.<\/p>\n
The two papers are the largest in the South Asian country, but protesters accused them of being aligned with neighbouring India, where Hasina has taken refuge.<\/p>\n
Zyma Islam, a reporter for the Daily Star said she was trapped inside the burning building.<\/p>\n
“I can’t breathe anymore. There’s too much smoke. I am inside. You are killing me,” she wrote on her Facebook page.<\/p>\n
The house of India’s deputy ambassador to Bangladesh was also surrounded by hundreds of people who were trying to demonstrate in a sit-in, but police lobbed tear gas shells to disperse the crowd, according to local news reports.<\/p>\n
In addition, protesters blocked a key highway connecting the capital with the central city of Mymensingh and attacked the residence of a former minister in Chittagong in the country’s southeast, according to footage shown on local television.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Friday, Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) announced that Hadi had died in hospital in the country.<\/p>\n
“Mr Sharif Osman Hadi was evacuated by air from Bangladesh to the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit on Dec 15, 2025, to receive emergency medical treatment,” MFA said.<\/p>\n
“Despite the best efforts of the doctors from SGH and the National Neuroscience Institute, Mr Hadi succumbed to his injuries on Dec 18, 2025.<\/p>\n
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is assisting the Bangladesh High Commission in Singapore with the arrangements to repatriate the late Mr Hadi to Bangladesh.”<\/p>\n
In Dhaka, the interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus confirmed Hadi’s death.<\/p>\n
“His demise is an irreparable loss for the nation,” Yunus said in a televised speech.<\/p>\n
“The country’s march toward democracy cannot be halted through fear, terror, or bloodshed.”<\/p>\n
The government also announced special prayers at mosques on Friday and a half-day of mourning on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Hadi, a senior leader of the student protest group Inqilab Mancha, was an outspoken critic of India, where Hasina remains in self-imposed exile.<\/p>\n
Bangladeshi police, meanwhile, have launched a manhunt for Hadi’s shooters, releasing photographs of two key suspects and offering a reward of 5 million taka (about US$42,000) for information leading to their arrest.<\/p>\n
Yunus, the 85-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner leading Bangladesh until the Feb 12 vote, has called the shooting a premeditated attack carried out by a powerful network aimed at derailing the election.<\/p>\n
Muslim-majority Bangladesh, a nation of 170 million people, will directly vote for 300 lawmakers for its parliament, with another 50 selected on a women’s list.<\/p>\n
The last elections, held in January 2024, gave Hasina a fourth straight term and her Awami League 222 seats, but were decried by opposition parties as a sham.<\/p>\n
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by three-time former prime minister Khaleda Zia, is widely tipped to win the upcoming vote.<\/p>\n
Zia is in intensive care in Dhaka, and her son and political heir, Tarique Rahman, is set to return from exile in Britain after 17 years on Dec 25.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n