Bangladeshi Muslims set fire to newspapers during a protest in Dhaka, yesterday. Thousands of Muslims took part in the protest to demand that the government punish the editor of a daily newspaper after Bangladesh’s military-backed government arrested a cartoonist over a sketch considered offensive to Muslims in the daily Prothom Alo, officials said. (AFP)

DHAKA • Baton-wielding police broke up a protest by hundreds of Islamists in the Bangladeshi capital yesterday against a magazine which published a cartoon they said hurt Muslims’ religious feelings, witnesses said.

Police waded in to halt a march by about 500 demonstrators chanting “death to the editor” and “hang the cartoonist” near Dhaka’s national mosque.

Police said the march could not go ahead under the current state of emergency, imposed when an army-backed interim government took charge in January after months of political violence.

The protest came two days after the offending cartoon was printed in Alpin, a weekly magazine published by Prothom Alo, the country’s leading Bangla-language daily.

Police arrested the cartoonist, Arifur Rahman, at his Dhaka home on Tuesday, after Muslim religious leaders complained.

The Information Ministry said it had seized copies of the offending magazine issue.

The interim government has pledged to punish the offenders, but urged the people to remain calm and show patience.

“Definitely it is a conspiracy to ignite unrest in the country. The government will punish the offenders,” Mainul Husein, adviser to the interim government in charge of the law and information ministries, told Muslim leaders on Tuesday.

The Prothom Alo has published an apology.

The Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami Party in a statement yesterday said the left-leaning daily had “intentionally printed the cartoon to hurt Muslims”.

The statement asked the people and the country to remain aware of the “ill intention” of the newspaper.

Meanwhile, an international press freedom body yesterday called for the immediate release of the Bangladeshi cartoonist detained for allegedly insulting Muslims.

Reporters Without Borders appealed to the military-backed government to release Rahman, who was detained following the publication of his cartoon in a satirical weekly magazine.

“The government should not yield to pressure from extremist leaders who are trying to politicise the case. Rahman should not be made a scapegoat. He must be freed.”

It is the second time that the emergency government has been criticised by Reporters Without Borders.

Last month, it said the government’s record had been “badly marred” by censorship and violence by security forces against journalists during a spate of unrest.

Bangladesh, with a population of 144 million, is the world’s third-largest Muslim-majority country.

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