Thousands of extra police and border guards were deployed in Dhaka and other major cities and towns on the eve of a general strike called to protest against the executions.
Supporters of the ruling Awami League meanwhile greeted the executions of Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury by holding street parties and doling out sweets to children.
Security was especially tight in the hometowns of the two executed men whose funerals were held on Sunday morning.
Bangladesh has been roiled by violence for much of the last three years since a domestic tribunal began delivering its verdicts on opposition figures accused of orchestrating massacres during the 1971 war.
A total of 18 people have been convicted but only two had been sent to the gallows before Mujahid and Chowdhury were hanged at Dhaka’s Central Prison shortly before 1:00am.
While the other three were members of the largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, Chowdhury was a senior figure in the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Jamaat, banned from contesting the 2014 general election, said the executions were part of a strategy “aimed at eliminating” its leadership.
The BNP also accused Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of presiding over a politically-motivated killing, which was carried out only hours after BNP leader Khaleda Zia returned from a lengthy stay in London.
“We’ve stepped up security across the country to prevent any violence, including on the roads along which the bodies were taken,” police spokesman Munstashirul Islam told AFP.
Hundreds of police were deployed outside the central city of Faridpur, where Mujahid was buried soon after daybreak. Reinforcements were also sent to Chowdhury’s home town of Raojan in the southeast.
A television journalist suffered minor injuries after being shot in Raojan hours after Chowdhury’s burial, private television Channel 24 said. A local police chief told AFP officers were checking if the incident was connected to the executions.
The 67-year-old Mujahid, Jamaat’s official number two, was sentenced for war crimes such as the killing of top intellectuals.
Chowdhury, 66, was convicted of atrocities including genocide during the 1971 war when the then-East Pakistan split from Islamabad. He served six terms as a member of parliament and was one of Zia’s top aides.
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