Bangladesh police have arrested three atheist bloggers for allegedly defaming Islam and the Prophet Mohammed, police said Tuesday, amid calls from religious fundamentalists for an Internet crackdown.

The arrest of the three, who were paraded in handcuffs at a news conference, followed pressure from Islamists who have organised a march from all over the country to the capital to demand the death penalty for atheist bloggers.

Bangladesh police have arrested three atheist bloggers for defaming Islam and the prophet Mohammed, police said Tuesday, amid demands from religious fundamentalists for an Internet crackdown.

The arrests of the three, who were paraded in hand-cuffs at a press conference Tuesday, came after pressure from Islamists who have organised a march to the capital to demand the death penalty for atheist bloggers.

Clashes in Bangladesh between police and supporters of the country's biggest Islamic party left three dead on Friday during protests linked to ongoing war crimes trials, reports said.

Jamaat-e-Islami activists have been staging strikes and rallies for months to protest against the trials which have placed nearly their entire party leadership in the dock, in cases dating back to the 1971 war of independence.

Bangladeshi police on Friday shot dead a protester in fresh clashes with thousands of supporters of the nation's biggest Islamic party angered by the ongoing war crimes trials of their leaders.

The incident occurred at Monirampur village in western Bangladesh when a mob of 3,000 people made a vain attempt to block police from arresting four activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, officials said.

Bangladeshi police shot dead an Islamist supporter on Thursday as they tried to fend off a mob attack by some 2,000 opposition activists angered by the ongoing war crimes trials of their leaders.

Police said 2,000 supporters of the country's largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, attacked a group of 90 officers at a village in the western Jhenidah district after they tried to arrest some Jamaat activists.

Bangladesh President Zillur Rahman, a veteran ruling party politician named to the largely ceremonial post in 2009, died Wednesday in a Singapore hospital, an embassy official said. He was 84.

"The president died at a hospital here in Singapore at 6.47 pm local time," Bangladesh High Commissioner in Singapore M. Mahbubuzzaman told Agence France Presse by phone.

The 17-year-old beaten to death for refusing to marry a man old enough to be her grandfather. The teen dragged by her family to be raped to force her into marrying an elderly man. They are among 39,000 girls forced into marriage every day around the world, sold like cattle to enrich their families.

More than one-third of all girls are married in 42 countries, according to the U.N. Population Fund, referring to females under the age of 18. The highest number of cases occurs in some of the poorest countries, the agency figures show, with the West African nation of Niger at the bottom of the list with 75 percent of girls married before they turn 18. In Bangladesh the figure is 66 percent and in Central African Republic and Chad it is 68 percent.

Schools and businesses were shut Monday across Bangladesh on the second day of a general strike called by Islamist protesters, as three more demonstrators died in the deadliest violence since independence.

Police said the three were killed in clashes in the south and northwest in continued protests over the conviction of Islamist leaders for war crimes, raising the overall toll to 80 since January 21.

Bangladesh deployed troops in the north of the country Sunday after 16 more people were killed in a fresh wave of violence over the conviction of Islamist leaders for war crimes in the Muslim-majority nation.

Thirteen were shot dead in the north and northeast and one policeman was killed in clashes with protesters in the western district of Jhenidah, police officials told AFP, adding two people were killed late Saturday.

Police arrested five students Saturday on charges of murdering an anti-Islamist blogger, as four people were killed in fresh protests over the sentencing to death of an Islamic party leader for war crimes.

The students allegedly confessed to hacking to death blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider after he helped organize protests against leaders of the biggest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, who are being tried by a war crimes court, police said.