(Reopens FGN 7)

JI activists made visible their violent presence yesterday as millions of people in Bangladesh stood in silence and transports turned standstill for three minutes from 4 pm as urged by the youths seeking a nationwide solidarity for their demonstration. JI earlier announced it would stage a nationwide "peaceful protest" against the exposure of their 10 top leaders to trial "as part of the ruling Awami League's political vendetta". The Shahbagh protests in the past one week has spread across Bangladesh with youngsters staging identical sit-ins in major cities and towns. The protestors call their demonstration a completely "non-political or non partisan" campaign as they declined to allow senior government leaders to deliver speech at the scene. But it visibly prompted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League-led government to approve a proposed amendment to the war crimes law, allowing the prosecution to appeal for tougher penalties for convicts as the existing law allows them to challenge only acquittal of an accused at the apex Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. Main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), a crucial ally of JI, apparently was in a dilemma over the Shabagh protest that mounted pressure on it to severe links with JI while the party feared the young protestors were used by the ruling Awami League to carryout their political agenda. Ten high-profile accused were exposed to Bangladesh's two International Crimes Tribunals with two of them are BNP leaders with rests being JI stalwarts while the special courts disposed two cases handing down one of the absconding former JI member to death penalty and another JI stalwart life imprisonments.