Bangladesh to airlift wounded uprising leader to Singapore after election shooting
Attackers shot student leader Sharif Osman Hadi shortly after a date was announced for elections, following on from last year’s uprising
Bangladesh’s interim government said it would fly a leader of the 2024 uprising, a candidate in coming elections, for treatment in Singapore after an assassination attempt that left him critically wounded.
Masked attackers shot student leader Sharif Osman Hadi on Friday as he left a mosque in the capital Dhaka, wounding him in the ear.
The shooting took place one day after authorities announced a date for the first elections since the student-led uprising last year that overthrew the autocratic government of Sheikh Hasina.
In a statement late on Sunday, the interim government said that “Sharif Osman Hadi will be flown to Singapore for better treatment. Travel arrangements, including an air ambulance and a team of doctors, are on standby.”
It added that “the state will bear all expenses”.
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Hadi is a senior leader of the student protest group Inqilab Mancha and has been an outspoken critic of India, Hasina’s old ally where the ousted prime minister remains in self-imposed exile.