More die in Bangladesh violence

Soldiers have arrested thousands of people

By Kaushik Das BBC reporter in Dhaka

Police in Bangladesh say that a young school teacher was shot dead by unknown gunmen in the capital Dhaka on Saturday.

The attack, carried out in broad daylight near his house, took place while the army was on the ninth day of a country-wide crackdown on criminals.

Meanwhile, officials confirmed that two more men had died after being detained by soldiers in the ongoing operations.

This raised the number of people who have died after being taken into custody by troops to nine in as many days.

But officials have rejected demands by rights groups, including Amnesty International, for inquiries into these deaths, saying post-mortems showed they had died of heart failure.

'No guarantee'

Swapan Goswami, who was in his early 30, taught at one of Dhaka's better secondary schools.

Troops have recovered arms and ammunition

He was buying cigarettes from a roadside vendor at about 0900 when a group of young men fired gunshots from close quarters.

The principal of the school where Mr Goswami taught expressed deep shock at the killing, especially at a time when the army has been conducting anti-crime operations.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Abdul Qayyum, told the BBC that the main aim of "Operation Clean Heart" was to bring down organised crime.

He said there was no guarantee that sporadic killings like the one today would stop completely during the drive.

Heart attacks

According to official sources, the army has so far rounded up more than 2,500 people across the country and seized more than 300 firearms along with 7,000 rounds of ammunition.

The owners of some sophisticated arms have claimed that these were licensed weapons.

Meanwhile, officials have confirmed the death of two more men after they were arrested by the army, in the towns of Noakhali and Rajbari.

Police say that one of the dead men, Abdul Aziz Sardar, was a top local leader of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

They say both men fell ill after being arrested and were sent to local hospitals where they later died.

Army officers say that the seven men who died earlier had had heart attacks.