According to Earth Times:
“An uneasy calm prevailed in central Dhaka Saturday after two days of violent clashes between police and militant Islamists left more than 100 injured, officials and witnesses said. Riot police and paramilitary border forces were deployed reinforcing security around the Baitul Mukarram mosque, the scene of overnight bloody battles.
The protesters were demanding the cancellation of a proposed national development policy for women, which allegedly gives equal inheritance rights to sons and daughters to parental property.”
And from Thaindian News:
“Bangladesh’s top judge and an Indian jurist have come out strongly in support of a move to formulate a law to ensure equal rights for women even as Islamist bodies termed it “anti-Quran” and clashed on the streets, leaving 200 wounded. “Women are about a half of the total population. Hence, their demand for equal rights is logical. Then why are various incidents taking place now on the issue?” Chief Justice M. Ruhul Amin remarked at a seminar Friday as protests entered the second day.
He said: “The demand for equal rights for women in every aspect of life is logical.”
Ombudsman of West Bengal, Samaresh Banerjee, who addressed the event as the guest of honour, said judicial systems in South Asian countries are not well equipped to deal with crimes on gender issues.
“Gender justice is a new jurisprudence all over the world,” Banerjee said, underscoring the need for initiating judicial education on gender issues in the eight member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc).
Meanwhile, the police battled protesters in Dhaka and the Chittagong port city, the United News of Bangladesh (UNB) news agency said.
Bangladesh’s Islamist bodies that have forged a front are protesting the recently announced national women development policy.
The marchers outside Dhaka’s Baitul Mukarram mosque chanted slogans demanding the resignation of Women and Children Affairs Adviser Rasheda K. Chowdhury and of the interim government of Chief Advisor Fakhruddin Ahmed.
Since then, some radical groups have been claiming that the policy gives equal inheritance rights to men and women, while the government maintained there is no such provision.
In efforts to scotch the discontent, four advisers of the caretaker government met Islamist leaders on March 27 and formed a review committee headed by the acting Khatib of Baitul Mukarram Mosque.
A report by the committee is due by April 16.”
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