A youth was killed in a “shootout” with police in Nesarabad upazila of Pirojpur early yesterday, taking the death toll to 20 in such incidents since the BNP-led alliance declared nationwide blockade on January 5.

Police, who arrested the youth hours before his death, described him as Bachchu, 26, an activist of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami.

The victim's family and the upazila unit of Shibir could not be contacted for their comments on the police claim.

Half of the 20 victims were BNP and Jamaat-Shibir men while six “criminals” or “robbers". Whether or not the rest of the victims had any political affiliations could not be verified.

Law enforcement agencies, however, claimed that all were involved in criminal activities, including robbery, hurling petrol bombs and crude bombs. 

“Bachchu was trying to create anarchy in the upazila by throwing petrol bombs at different points of the upazila. Police arrested him with two petrol bombs around 11:00pm on Friday from the upazila town,” said Shah Abid Hossain, superintendent of Pirojpur police.

As per his statement during preliminary interrogation, a police team along with Bachchu went for recovering more petrol bombs.

When the team reached Nesarabad bus terminal area around 2:30am, accomplices of Bachchu opened fire on police. The law enforcers also returned fire, triggering a “gunfight” with Bachchu's men. Bachchu was hit by bullets and died on the spot, the police official said.

He also claimed that three policemen, including sub-inspector of Nesarabad Police Station, were also injured during the “gunfight”. 

During interrogation, Bachchu informed police that he was hired by Jamaat man Delwar Hossain for torching vehicles with petrol bombs. Police also nabbed Delwar.

Alamgir Hossain, secretary of the district unit BNP, claimed that Delwar is the president of ward-7 unit of the Swarupkathi municipality BNP.

Some locals said Bachchu, son of Abdul Jabbar of Auriya village in the upazila, lived with his family in Savar, on the outskirts of the capital. He came to his village on Friday morning.