The United States said Tuesday it will curtail aid that benefits Bangladeshi politicians and redirect it to address labor and other concerns amid frustration over the country's prolonged political infighting.

Nisha Biswal, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, reiterated U.S. calls for new elections after a January 5 vote boycotted by the opposition. She also urged Bangladesh to make greater strides in factory safety following a series of horrific disasters.

Bangladesh opposition leader Khaleda Zia accused the government Tuesday of "state terrorism", saying more than 240 of her supporters were killed during a four-week period that included last month's controversial election.

Zia, a two-time former premier who heads the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), said security forces and ruling party activists were behind the killings and forced disappearance of her supporters.

A boat packed with laborers and their children caught fire and capsized in a river in northeastern Bangladesh leaving at least 11 people dead and others missing, police said Tuesday.

The boat was thought to be ferrying around 100 passengers home from a stone quarry along the Surma river, in the town of Chhatak, when a fire sparked by a kerosene stove engulfed the vessel on Monday night.

A Bangladesh court on Thursday sentenced 14 people to death, including the leader of the country's largest Islamist party, over a massive arms smuggling racket ten years ago.

Motiur Rahman Nizami, 70, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was sentenced to hang after being convicted over the racket involving 10 truckloads of arms seized by police at a Bangladesh port.

Bangladesh police shot dead three activists from the country's largest Islamist party in clashes on Sunday, officers said, amid allegations security forces are targeting opposition supporters for execution.

Police said the three were killed during two separate gun-battles with bomb-throwing activists from the Jamaat-e-Islami party in two southeastern towns, clashes that also left several officers injured.

Bangladesh opposition leader Khaleda Zia urged supporters on Monday to stage fresh protests to try to force new elections, at her first public rally since authorities eased her de facto house arrest.

Zia, a two-time former premier and the arch enemy of current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, branded the new government illegal after bloody elections earlier this month that were boycotted by the opposition.

Bangladesh police said Monday they have arrested three suspected Pakistani militants who were allegedly carrying a bomb-making manual and other material in the capital Dhaka.

The three arrested on Sunday night admitted under police questioning to having received training from the Pakistani Taliban in carrying out attacks, a Dhaka police spokesman said.

- Bangladesh police arrested three journalists from a pro-opposition newspaper for publishing a "false" story claiming Indian forces had helped to contain recent election violence, an officer said Friday.

The news editor, deputy chief reporter and diplomatic correspondent of Dhaka-based Bangla-language daily Inqilab were arrested late Thursday after police filed a case against the publication.

Sheikh Hasina was sworn in for a third spell as Bangladesh's prime minister on Sunday after a deadly general election boycotted by the opposition amid an ongoing political crisis.

President Abdul Hamid led the oath at the presidential palace in the capital Dhaka in a ceremony broadcast live on television channels, one week after the polls which were condemned by the opposition as a farce.

Bangladesh's newly-elected lawmakers took their parliamentary oath on Thursday after an election condemned by critics as a farce and with feuding political leaders still locked in a deadly confrontation.

Led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, members of parliament from the ruling Awami League and lawmakers from her allies were sworn in, parliament's spokesman Joynal Abedin told AFP.