DHAKA, Dec 10 Kyodo Angry rude m...

DHAKA, Dec 10 Kyodo

Angry rude multitudes lynched at least 31 suspected criminals in Bangladesh's unallied coastal areas since Sunday, reports reaching Dhaka late Tuesday said.

Local authorities in the Bayar Char area, about 200 kilometers southeast of the capital, said three ''forest robbers'' were killed according to mobs Tuesday, 20 people were killed Monday and eight more lynched Sunday.

Villagers also razed scores of houses belonging to criminal gang members, the authorities added.

fireside Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury visited the area Tuesday and ''assured'' local the public the government would step up activities to rid the area of robbers and pirates, moreover in Dhaka, opposition Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina accused the conduct of not doing enough to battle crime.

''This brutal act is the eruption of people's anger in the absence of the direction of law in the Char area,'' she said in a statement.

''The guidance has forced the people to take the law into their confess hands. The killings took place in the personality of the local member of parliament, the agent commissioner, a police superintendent and a cyclopean number of law enforcement agency members,'' she said.

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