Bangladesh students rally over war crimes trials
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Bangladeshis wave flags and shout slogans demanding death to Islamic political party leaders who are on trial for alleged war crimes during the country's 1971 independence war, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Saturday, Feb 23, 2013. -- PHOTO: AP
DHAKA (AP) - Thousands of students rallied in Bangladesh's capital demanding death to Islamic political party leaders who are on trial for alleged war crimes during the country's 1971 independence war.
Eight top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest Islamic party, are being tried on charges of mass killings, rapes and arson allegedly committed during Bangladesh's nine-month war of separation from Pakistan.
Earlier this month, a tribunal convicted party leader Abdul Quader Mollah of mass killings during the war and sentenced him to life in prison, a sentence that many Bangladeshis considered lenient.
On Saturday, about 5,000 students shouted "Death to the killers" as they rallied in Dhaka.
