An opposition activist is dead and dozens of voting booths attacked in Bangladesh on the eve of elections hit by a mass boycott.
Police said the protester was killed in clashes with supporters of the ruling Awami League in the northern town of Patgram on Saturday as the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) enforced a nationwide strike to resist what it calls a "farcical" election on Sunday.
"We don't know his identity but he is from either the BNP or Jamaat-e-Islami party," a police chief in Patgram told AFP, referring to the opposition's main Islamist ally, which is banned from Sunday's poll.
The BNP is the largest of 21 opposition parties that have refused to take part in the parliamentary election, which is certain to be won by the Awami League.
About 150 people have been killed in political violence since October and a mass military deployment ahead of the polls failed to halt the unrest.
Police and election officials said on Saturday protesters had set fire to or attempted to torch 34 polling booths.
Officials said the attacks would not derail the election and that alternative arrangements had been made for voters to cast ballots in the affected areas.
"There won't be any cancellation of polls in my region," Mohammad Abdullah, a government administrator in the southeastern Chittagong region, told AFP.
"We've already made move to shift three polling centres which have been torched by protesters."
Two of the polling stations attacked were in the capital, Dhaka, while nine were hit in the troubled southern Khulna district.
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