The government must block the sources of funding of madrasas which are involved in terrorist activities in Bangladesh, speakers told a human chain yesterday.

They claimed that different militant organisations including Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji) were taking training on terrorism at the madrasas backed by Jamaat-e-Islami and Hefazat-e-Islami.

So all qawmi madrasas should be brought under a special monitoring

system, they told the programme at the capital's Shahbagh, organised by Sammilito Samajik Andolon to protest the killing of blogger Oyasiqur Rahman Babu and demand a ban on the politics of religious fundamentalist groups including Jamaat-Shibir.

Oyasiqur, 27, a blogger, was hacked to death by three youths, two of them madrasa students, in the capital's Tejgaon Industrial area on March 30. About one month ago, some assailants killed writer-blogger Avijit Roy and badly wounded his wife Rafida Ahmed Banya on Dhaka University campus.

Oikya NAP President Pankaj

Bhattacharya said the attack on and killing of freedom fighters, bloggers and free-thinkers must not be tolerated.

Imran H Sarker, spokesperson of a faction of Gonojagoron Mancha, said the same group committed the murders, and their patron was also same.

Such incidents are recurring, as the culprits are not given exemplary punishment, he said. "If the incumbent government fails to take any action, we will believe that it is following the footsteps of the previous governments," he said.

Sammilito Samajik Andolon President Ajoy Roy presided over the programme.