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A day after late night crackdown on thousands of Islamist protesters who were camped in Dhaka's key commercial district, Bangladesh Police Wednesday brushed aside rumors of "3,000 people dead" in the raid amid a blackout.
Over the last two days, at dinner tables, family gatherings, business meetings and even tea stalls, Bangladeshis were asking about the raid of the early Monday when 10,000 law enforcers swept away thousands of Islamist protesters who have been demanding a stricter anti-blasphemy law.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's state machinery have been inundated with calls from the opposition parties regarding the rumors that many people died in the raid which police, paramilitary troops and elite force members conducted at about 3: 00 a.m. local time on Monday.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Benzir Ahmed in a press briefing Wednesday dismissed the rumors, saying, "The rumors of 800, 2,000 and 3,000 people dead in the raid were false."
"Please don't believe the fake photoshopped images which are being circulated through social media," he told the reporters.
"We've found 11 bodies, including a police officer who were stabbed to death, after the operation that within 10-minutes evicted thousands of protesters from their key rally place," he said.
"But we needed hours to sweep them away from the Motijheel adjoining areas."
Ahmed claimed that they used non-lethal weapons and sound grenades to create "an appalling situation" to disperse thousands of protesters.
But television footages showed armored vans driving about and non-stop teargas shells being lobbed, live ammunition and rubber bullets fired in Motijheel areas which were littered with papers, a few thousand pairs of sandals, wooden and bamboo sticks, and hundreds of hand bags.
The fresh wave of violence broke out on Sunday outside the Baitul Mukarram national mosque as hundreds of thousands of Islamist protester under the banner of Hefazat- e-Islam, a group of non-political Islamic scholars who draw support from many across Bangladesh, marched towards Motijheel after they besieged the capital city to press home their 13-point demand.
The violence that erupted in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country until Tuesday reportedly left at least 41 people including three law enforcers dead and over one thousand injured.
Ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party ( BNP) Monday night called the countrywide general strikes for Wednesday and Thursday protesting the "government crackdown on the unarmed Islamists".
Stray incidents of clash, arson, vandalism, chase and counter- chase, explosion of bombs and detention have been reported in parts of capital Dhaka and elsewhere in the country on account of the Wednesday's hartal of the BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance in which Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party is a key ally.
Authorities on early Monday closed down two popular pro- opposition TV channels Diganta and Islamic which are well known as TV channels of Jamaat.
Senior BNP leader MK Anwar in a press briefing Monday afternoon claimed hundreds of Hefazat men were killed in the raid and their bodies were hidden in a secret location.
In the evening of the day, Mahbub-ul-Alam Hanif, joint general secretary of AL, ruled out the allegation and said they will take legal action if the BNP leader can't prove any such incident.
Hefazat, which extended its support to the BNP's hartals, Tuesday night also called countrywide shutdown on May 12 protesting the Monday's crackdown.
Police say 62 Islamist protesters including Secretary General of Hefazat Junaed Babunagriwere arrested. But Hefazat chief Ahmad Shafi was put on a plane by authorities for Chittagong where he is the rector of a Islamic school.
In the press briefing, the DMP commissioner refrained from making comment as he was asked why Hefazat chief have been put on a plane to leave for Chittagong instead of arresting.
But many say the arrest of Hefazat chief could spark more violence that's why the government avoided the task.
Hefazat has called its Dhaka siege program to gear up its ongoing campaign against the atheist bloggers, some of whom reportedly spearheaded Bangladesh's Shahbag Square movement demanding capital punishment for war criminals and a ban on the Jamaat, many top leaders of which allegedly committed crimes against humanity during the country's nine-month liberation war in 1971.
Although the bloggers have already denied the blasphemy allegations brought against them, the group has continued their movement.
Nearly 100 people, including several policemen and dozens of Jamaat leaders and activists, were killed and hundreds of others injured in the riots erupted since a tribunal awarded death sentence to the Jamaat's Vice President Delwar Hosssain Sayeede for war crimes in 1971 on Feb. 28.
