Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday announced that her government would construct 560 model mosques and an Islamic university with Saudi assistance, in an attempt to woo hardline Islamists ahead of parliamentary elections next month.

Speaking at a rally of clerics, Hasina urged them not to be agitated by anti-Islam propaganda on social media, saying her government had enacted tougher laws against any malicious campaign concerning the religion.

“I know that a lot of propaganda spreads on social media... do not pay any heed,” she said.

The Premier said her government had introduced tough cyber-crime laws to deal with malicious campaigns, and that “anyone who spreads such false information would be exposed to justice”.

Saudi Arabia will assist her government in building the mosques and the Islamic university, the Dhaka Tribune reported.

Hasina’s Awami League party is considered a secular party while her rival Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is close to the hardliners.

Observers said the move to build hundreds of mosques is an attempt to woo Islamist voters, who have been traditionally voting for Zia’s BNP or her ally Jamaat-e-Islami.

The rally was organised by Al-Hiyatul Ulya Lil-Zami’atil Qawmiya Bangladesh, the highest organisation of Dawra-e-Hadith of Qawmi madarsas, to honour the Prime Minister following her government’s recognition of certificates offered by the non-government madarsas as equivalent to postgraduate degrees. Thousands of students and teachers of Qawmi madarsas attended the rally.

In a rare instance, the government had earlier deferred Sunday’s public exams to allow teachers and students of the Islamic seminaries to attend the rally.

At the rally, Qawmi leaders expressed their desire to see the Hasina in power for a third consecutive term.