Crowds gather at Shahbag before Hadi’s body slated to arrive in Dhaka

Groups of people have begun assembling at Shahbag in central Dhaka as the body of Hadi is expected to arrive in the capital this evening. Nadim Hawlader, 32, from Dhaka’s airport area and an activist of a Bangladesh Nationalist Party-affiliated volunteer organisation, told Al Jazeera that Hadi had been “brutally murdered” to silence dissent. “We have come to protest his killing and what we see as Indian aggression,” Hawlader said..He alleged that India had exerted undue influence over Bangladesh since 1971, and accused New Delhi of backing Sheikh Hasina’s rule over the past 17 years, during which, he claimed, political repression and killings took place.