UNB, Dhaka :Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) has taken stringent security measures in the capital ahead of the first-phase 24-hour countrywide hartal of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami beginning at 6am on Thursday.Around 10,000 additional policemen alongside regular ones will remain deployed in the city with high alert during the hartal hours, said sources at the DMP.Jamaat on Wednesday called a 48-hour countrywide hartal in two phases for Thursday and Sunday demanding the release of its nayeb-e-ameer Delwar Hossain Sayedee, jailed by the Supreme Court unto death for his crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971. The first phase 24-hour strike will start at 6am on Thursday and continue until 6am on Friday.Sources at the DMP said alongside uniformed police, members of Detective Branch of DMP, equipped with video and still cameras, will remain standby at strategic points to identify those who will try to create anarchy, including vandalising vehicles and exploding crude bombs.Contacted, DMP Deputy Commissioner (Media) Masudur Rahman said adequate number of police will be deployed from early Thursday to ensure smooth movement of the city dwellers during the hartal hours.Earlier in the day, a five-member Appellate Division bench, headed by Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain, commuted Sayedee’s death sentence handed down by the International Crimes Tribunal-1 to imprisonment until death for his crimes against humanity during the Liberation War.On February 28, 2013, the three-member International Crimes Tribunal-1 condemned Sayedee to death for his crimes against humanity during the Liberation War, acquitting him of a dozen of the charges.
