Bangladeshi police gather near a car set ablaze by Islamist protesters during clashes on Monday, May 6. Police broke up a protest of tens of thousands of religious hardliners and shut down an Islamist television station Monday after battles in the streets of Dhaka. Demonstrations calling for religious laws, led by the ultraconservative group Hefazat-e-Islam (Protectors of Islam), have been building since February.
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Dhaka, Bangladesh (CNN) -- Bangladesh on Monday entered the second day of a strike amid clashes between protesters and security forces that have killed dozens of people after an Islamist party leader was sentenced to death last week for war crimes.
The violence, which has shaken the South Asian country in recent days, left 21 people dead Sunday, authorities said, after supporters of the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami attacked police stations and government offices.
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The unrest flared after a war crimes tribunal on Thursday handed down a death sentence to Delwar Hossain Sayedee, a top Jamaat leader, for acts including killings and rapes committed during the country's nine-month war of independence in 1971.
The sentencing of Sayedee, 73, followed convictions of two other Jamaat leaders by the tribunal in recent weeks, deepening political divisions in the country and causing longstanding tensions to boil over into violence.
Human rights advocates have called on Jamaat leaders to rein in their followers and also urged restraint from the Bangladeshi security forces dealing with the protesters.
Adding to the strains on the country, Jamaat-e-Islami and its ally, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, a leading opposition group, called on workers to go on strike across the country for three days starting Sunday. Thousands of supporters took to the streets to enforce the stoppage, causing disruption to businesses, transport and communications.
Police outposts attacked
During the violence Sunday, stick-wielding protesters in the town of Bogra set fire to police outposts and attacked government offices before police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to repel them. Authorities said said at least 10 people were killed there.
Thousands of people took to the streets in the northwestern district of Jaipurhat, resulting in clashes with police in which at least six people were killed, according to local authorities.
Elsewhere, protesters cut down trees onto railway tracks to prevent a train from running, and overturned passenger buses and burned cars.
Violence following Sayedee's sentencing on Thursday had already left 64 people dead, prompting calls for calm.
"The leadership of Jamaat should immediately issue public statements to its followers to stop these violent, unacceptable attacks against law enforcement officers and those who support the verdicts of the war crimes trials," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Friday.
He also called on the government to ensure security forces "use maximum restraint and avoid lethal force unless necessary to protect their lives or those of others."
"If cool heads don't prevail, Dhaka could dissolve into uncontrolled violence," he warned.
The United States has express sadness over the loss of life in the recent unrest.
"While engaging in a peaceful protest is a fundamental democratic right, we believe violence is never the answer," Patrick Ventrell, a State Department spokesman said at a regular news briefing Friday.
The 1971 war
Set up by Bangladesh in 2010, the war crimes proceedings are dealing with offenses committed during the country's war to gain independence from Pakistan more than four decades ago.
Bangladesh had been the eastern part of Pakistan until it gained independence in 1971 in a conflict that claimed between 1 million and 3 million lives.
Jamaat-e-Islami opposed East Pakistan's struggle for independence and has decried what it calls a smear campaign against it for its role in the war. The movement has called the war crimes proceedings politically motivated.
So far, the court has indicted 10 people, seven of them top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami.
According to Human Rights Watch, "the trials conducted thus far have been replete with irregularities."
In January, the court tried its first case and convicted Abul Kalam Azad, an expelled Jamaat member who is at large. Azad was sentenced in absentia to death by hanging.
But the court's decision February 5 to sentence Abdul Quader Mollah, Jamaat's assistant secretary general, to life imprisonment rather than death set off a different type of demonstration.
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, led by youths and fueled by social media, gathered at an intersection in Dhaka, saying the sentence was too mild and demanding the death penalty for those convicted of war crimes.
Those protests, which have remained largely peaceful, have also called for a ban on extreme fundamentalist parties.
Journalist Farid Ahmed reported from Dhaka, and CNN's Jethro Mullen from Hong Kong.
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Bangladeshi police escort Allama Shah Ahmad Shafi, an Islamic leader and Hefazat-e-Islam movement veteran, from Dhaka on May 6.
Rapid Action Battalion personnel stand guard following a clash between police and Islamists in Dhaka on May 6.
Bangladeshi people look at burned religious literature, including the Quran, near the national mosque Baitul Mukarram in Dhaka on May 6.
A Bangladeshi man extinguishes a blaze at a building near the national mosque Baitul Mukarram in Dhaka on May 6.
Islamist protesters gather on a highway at an entry point to the city as as part of their protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Sunday, May 5.
Bangladeshi police charge at Islamists with batons during clashes on May 5.
Hefazat-e-Islami activists attend a rally on May 5.
Bangladeshi police detain a protester on May 5.
Police walk past a fire set by Islamist protesters on May 5 during clashes with police.
Islamist demonstrators pray during protests on May 5.
Bangladeshi police fire rubber bullets at demonstrators from an armored car on May 5.
Civilians carry an injured protester on May 5.
Islamist protesters run as Bangladeshi police fire rubber bullets on May 5.
A Bangladeshi protester shouts during a rally on April 8 against the strike called by Hefazat-e-Islam. Correction: An earlier version of this caption misstated what this woman was protesting. It implied she was supporting the conservative Islamist movement that called the strike.
A man rides a bicycle past a bus set on fire during a clash with Jamaat-e-Islami activists in Rajshahi on February 28.
Bangladeshi police personnel stand guard during a nationwide strike in Dhaka on February 24.
Bangladeshi Islamist activists shout inside the Baitul Mukarram national mosque in Dhaka on February 22. Protesters in Dhaka and in other majority Muslim countries asked that bloggers defaming Islam and Prophet Mohammed be punished.
Bangladeshi police detain Islamist activists during clashes in Dhaka on February 22.
Bangladeshi police detain an Islamist activist during clashes in Dhaka on February 22.
An Islamic party activist shouts during a rally in Dhaka on February 20.
Tens of thousands of people join a sit-in at Shahbagh Square in Dhaka on February 15 to demand the death penalty for war crimes.
An effigy of a snake in a demonstration demanding the death sentence for the country's war criminals in Dhaka on February 6.
Bangladeshi social activists and bloggers in Dhaka use newspapers as hats during a demonstration demanding death sentences for war criminals on February 6.
Bangladeshi police detain a suspected Jamaat-e-Islami activist during a nationwide strike in Dhaka on February 6.
Bangladeshi social activists and bloggers participate in a torch-lit rally on February 6 in Dhaka.
Bangladeshi social activists and bloggers demonstrate in Dhaka on February 6.
Activists and former freedom fighters who fought against Pakistan in the 1971 war demonstrate outside the court in Dhaka on February 5.
Rapid Action Battalion personnel keep watch outside the International Crimes Tribunal court in Dhaka on February 5.
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