At least 25 people were killed in Bangladesh on Monday when two passenger buses collided head-on, police said.

More than two dozen people were injured in the accident at Baraigram, 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Dhaka, said district police chief Basudev Banik, warning the death toll could rise.

Bangladesh police said Thursday they had foiled an attempt by suspected Islamic militants to murder an "atheist" school teacher in the capital, amid concerns a banned hardline outfit is reforming.

Police fired on the militants from banned group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) whom officers had stopped by chance on Wednesday near the teacher's home in north Dhaka, a local police chief said.

A Bangladesh court ordered the arrest Wednesday of a former minister who was dismissed last week after Islamists staged nationwide protests calling for his prosecution over remarks criticizing the annual Muslim Hajj pilgrimage.

The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka issued an arrest warrant for Abdul Latif Siddique for allegedly "wounding religious sentiments" of the country's majority Muslim population, police inspector Aminur Rahman said.

Thai authorities on Saturday arrested 53 Rohingya migrants and two suspected Thai traffickers en route to neighboring Malaysia, an official said.

The migrants were found on a rubber plantation in Takua Pa district in the southern coastal province of Phang Nga, district chief Manit Phianthong told Agence France Presse.

Having ridden out the uproar over her walkover re-election, Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is now attempting to silence any further dissent with the crucial backing of the military, say observers.

The United States was among a host of countries to demand new polls that "credibly express the will" of the people after Hasina's ruling Awami League romped to victory in a January ballot boycotted by the opposition.

Bangladesh has sacked a top minister after his criticism of the Muslim pilgrimage of Hajj triggered protests by Islamists who declared him an apostate and set a 24-hour deadline to replace him.

Abdul Latif Siddique, the country's telecommunications minister, who is in New York accompanying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, made the comments which were aired by local television stations.

Bangladesh police said Monday they have arrested a British citizen suspected of entering the country to recruit militants for jihadist groups overseas such as the Islamic State organization.

Officers said Samiun Rahman, a 24-year-old Londoner of Bangladeshi origin, was picked up from a railway station in the capital around midnight on Sunday.

Bangladesh police said Thursday they have arrested two suspected Islamist militants whom they accused of planning to set up an al-Qaida branch in the Muslim-majority country.

Detectives raided several properties in the Bangladesh capital, arresting five militants, including two members of a little-known local hardline Islamist group, a Dhaka police spokesman said.

Bangladesh police said Wednesday they have recovered a skull and what are believed to be other human remains from the ruins of a garment factory complex which collapsed last year killing more than 1,000 people.

Police said street children spotted the skull on Tuesday along with bone fragments while rifling through debris just behind the site of the former Rana Plaza complex in Savar on the outskirts of Dhaka.

Bangladesh's main opposition leader Khaleda Zia went on trial Monday charged with embezzling $650,000 in two corruption cases that could see her jailed for life if found guilty.

Lead prosecutor Mosharraf Hossain said the anti-corruption court opened Zia's trial after rejecting a request for a further delay by lawyers for the leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), who twice served as prime minister.