A few hundred people staged a rally in Hathazari upazila headquarters in Chittagong Tuesday afternoon demanding death penalty for top bloggers of the ongoing Shahbagh movement. The bigots further threatened of tougher movement if the bloggers were not punished as they demanded. “They are active online for several years defaming Islam and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) through their writings,” Maulana Jahangir Alam, upazila unit general secretary of Bangladesh Khelafat Andolon, told The Daily Star. Hefazate-e-Islam, meanwhile, announced it would hold a mass rally at Hathazari Parbati High School on February 25 to press home the same demand. During Tuesday's demonstration, the speakers specifically demanded deaths for Omi Rahman Pial, Ibrahim Khalil, Arif Jebtik and Asif Mohiuddin who are at the forefront of the Shahbagh movement that continued for the 15th straight day on Tuesday in demand of capital punishment to the war criminals. Jointly organised by Khelafat Andolon and Islami Oikkya Jote, the crowd of around 500 people, mostly from a local Darul Ulum Moinul Islam Madrasa, gathered at Dakbanglo intersection around 3:00pm. Speakers at the rally termed the bloggers as ‘atheists’ and demanded their capital punishment, our Chittagong correspondent reported quoting Nurul Hakim, a sub-inspector at Hathazari Police Station. Asked whether the organisation had taken permission for the rally, Liakat Ali, officer-in-charge of the police station, told The Daily Star that prior permission is not required for all types of programmes. “We are aware about the rally,” he said. According to a post on a Shahbagh movement Facebook page, the Hathazari agitators distributed leaflets carrying the photos of some frontline bloggers of the Shahbagh movement terming them as atheists. "Banners hung there say the Shahbagh movement has been organised to insult Islam," the post reads. the daily star