Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi announced the programme on Tuesday and said that a prayer session will be held to commemorate Khaleda Zia’s 79th birthday on Friday and to pray for those killed in the protest, reported the media.

Among the accused are Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader, former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, and former Inspector General of Police Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun.

Islam, 26, gained national prominence in mid-July when he was detained by police during a protest against job quotas, which escalated into a campaign demanding Hasina’s resignation.

Nasreen has been living in exile since 1994 after she faced criticism from Islamist fundamentalists for her writings on communalism and women’s equality in Bangladesh.

A temple was vandalised and set afire in Bangladesh's Khulna even as Hindu places of worship were targeted all over the country, which remained on the boil after the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina followed by an Army takeover.

The Lockheed C-130J Hercules jet was the most watched aircraft in the world on Monday on flight tracking website Flightradar24.com as it was speculated that former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was on board fleeing her country and heading for New Delhi following an Army coup and violent student unrests over job quotas.

The nearly three hour-meeting started at around 8:15 pm (BST) after tens of thousands of students, their guardians and ordinary people joined a mammoth protest rally at Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka against the killings and mass arrests over quota system for government jobs.

Amid escalating unrest in Bangladesh, a hacker group known as “THE R3SISTANC3” has targeted the official websites of the Prime Minister’s Office, Central Bank, and police. The hacked sites displayed an identical message, “Operation HuntDown, Stop Killing Students,” emphasising, “It’s not a protest anymore, it’s a war now.”

In the latest update regarding the situation in Bangladesh, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has announced that over 4,500 Indian students have safely returned to India amid ongoing protests in the country.

In West Bengal where the Ganges flows into Bangladesh is instrumental in ensuring that water diverts into the Hooghly River. It is critical for the functioning of the Kolkata Port and meets the water needs of urban settlements along the Hooghly-Bhagirathi river, including Kolkata.

President Murmu said that India attaches the highest priority to its friendship with Bangladesh, and "we are committed to realizing its full potential". 

The two leaders were meeting on the sidelines of the prestigious Munich Security Conference, in its 60th edition, which is the world’s leading forum for debate on international security.