Dhaka  - Troops fanned out across Bangladesh Monday to assist regular security forces in maintaining order during the country's local elections Thursday, officials said.

"As many as 38,000 troops will be deployed across the country to aid the regular police force in maintaining order," a Home Ministry official said.

They will be stationed in remote areas to support nearly 500,000 other security personnel guarding more than 30,000 polling stations across the country in an effort to prevent violence on voting day.

Dhaka - Troops fanned out across Bangladesh Monday to assist regular security forces to maintain order during the country's local elections Wednesday, officials said.

"As many as 38,000 troops will be deployed across the country to aid the regular police force in maintaining order," a Home Ministry official said.

They will be stationed up to the remote areas as a striking force beside nearly 500,000 other security personnel to guard over 30,000 polling stations across the country to prevent violence on voting day.

Dhaka  - The first visit by an Indian minister to Bangladesh since the end of a military-backed government is scheduled for February, Bangladeshi officials announced Sunday.

Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee is scheduled to visit Bangladesh in early February to discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues, including the formation of a proposed South Asian task force against terrorism, officials said.

The task force was proposed by the new Bangladeshi government, led by Sheikh Hasina's Awami League, which took power January 6 following a landslide December victory over the military-backed government of Fakhruddin Ahmed.

Dhaka - Several Islamist parties in Muslim-dominated Bangladesh staged demonstration Friday protesting the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, with rights groups calling for an end to Israel's "crime against humanity."

"We believe the atrocities in Gaza clearly constitute a crime against humanity by the Israeli state," read a statement issued by Odhikar, a Bangladeshi coalition of human rights groups. It expressed deep concern over continued attacks by the Israeli military that have killed more than 1,100 people, many of them civilian women and children.

Bangkok - Thailand's government is investigating reports that a boatload of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar were set adrift in an overcrowded boat by border officials in December, allegedly resulting in many deaths, the foreign ministry said Friday.

Thailand remains committed to "humanitarian principles," even in the face of the "increasing urgency" and the "increasing size" of human trafficking in the region, the statement added.

Dhaka - Violent clashes between two groups of activists belonging to the student wings of the ruling Awami League and opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party left at least 25 people injured at Jahangirnagar University Friday, police said.

During the clashes, which erupted mainly because of attempts to establish control over the dormitories of the university, the students traded at least 30 gunshots, according to police, but no-one received bullet wounds.

Rival groups beat each other with hockey-sticks, rods and other weapons.