Calm returns gradually as Bangladesh remains on alert amid Awami League's protest call

Bangladesh on Wednesday remained calm but tense as security forces continued to maintain a strict vigil across major cities amid the Awami League's call for nationwide demonstrations to protest the death sentence handed down to its chief and former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Traffic flow and daily activities in Dhaka and other major urban centres showed signs of gradually returning to normalcy, with no incidents of violence reported for the second consecutive day.

Armed police, Rapid Action Battalion personnel and paramilitary forces, however, continued intensive patrols around government buildings, party offices and key intersections in the capital city in view of Awami League's call for three-day nationwide demonstrations, protests and resistance beginning Wednesday.

Several parts of the capital remained under security cordons, with checkpoints and barricades regulating movement.

The Awami League, in a statement posted on social media on Monday, had called for a total shutdown on Tuesday and “nationwide demonstrations, protests and resistance” from November 19 to 21 in response to the verdict against Hasina, which it described as “politically motivated”, "malicious, retaliatory, and vengeful".

In Gazipur city, a fire broke out at a warehouse owned by a Jubo Dal leader, destroying goods, Bengali daily Prothom Alo reported. However, it was not immediately known whether the blaze was accidental or an act of sabotage.

Jubo Dal is the youth wing of Khaleda Zia-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which has emerged as the frontrunner in the absence of Hasina's now disbanded Awami League party.

Meanwhile, 1,649 people were arrested during raids conducted across the country on Monday and Tuesday as part of ongoing security operations, vernacular newspaper Jugantor reported, quoting police. Ten firearms, 30.5 kg of gunpowder, ammunition and cocktail bombs were recovered during the raids, police said.

Hasina, 78, was on Monday sentenced to death in absentia by Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) for "crimes against humanity" over her government's brutal crackdown on student-led protests last year.

It also handed the death sentence to former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on similar charges.

Hasina has been living in India since she fled Bangladesh on August 5 last year in the face of the massive protests.

Commenting on the verdict, Hasina denied the charges as "biased and politically motivated" and said the judgment has been made by a "rigged tribunal" established and presided over by an "unelected government with no democratic mandate".