Members of Shaheed Rumi Squad, who had been on fast-unto-death at Shahbagh since March 26 to push for ban on Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir, on Monday night suspended their hunger strike till April 4.
They ended the hunger strike at around 11:30pm with Ganajagaran Mancha spokesperson Imran H Sarker and Nasiruddin Yusuf Bachchu feeding fruit juice to them on the seventh day of their protest.
‘We will resume the hunger strike on April 4 if there is no specific word from the prime minister about banning the Jamaat-e-Islami,’ convener of the squad Sadat Hasan Niloy said while suspending the protest. The Ganajagaran Mancha is schedule to submit a memorandum to the prime minister on April 4.
In the evening, planning minister AK Khandaker and Ekatturer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee executive president Shahriar Kabir went to Shahbagh to persuade them to break the fast. Addressing the members of Rumi Squad, AK Khandaker said he was visiting them as a freedom fighter and as continued with their hunger strike that rolls into its eighth day today.
On Monday morning when thunderstorm swept over the city, the hunger strikers huddled together under a shed in front of the National Museum to protect themselves from rain and stormy winds.
‘We helped each other to fight it off,’ said Senjuti Shonima Nadi, a member of the squad.
The squad members began the toughest form of non-violent protest to force the government to meet up the demand of the Ganajagaron Mancha that includes banning Jamaat immediately.
The protesters were becoming emaciated from continued hunger strike and many of them could fall seriously ill, said organisers of the Shahbagh protests and sympathisers who visited them on Monday morning.
However, no one was reported to have been admitted to hospital on the day.
‘The government’s silence about our demand is a mystery,’ said Sadat Hasan Niloy, convener of the squad, named after independence war martyr Shafi Imam Rumi, son of Jahanara Imam who had led a symbolic trial of war crimes suspect Ghulam Azam in a ‘people’s court’ in 1992.
Seven members of the squad began the protests as the government did not initiate any process to ban Jamaat and Shibir by the deadline of March 26 the Shahbagh protesters earlier set for the government. Artists of Ganajagaran Sangskriti Mancha have been performing at the venue to express solidarity with the demand.
A good number of people in Khulna, Chittagong, Sylhet, Rangpur, Jessore and students of Khulna University of Engineering and Technology are also on hunger strike expressing their solidarity with Rumi Squad’s protests.
The youth-led Shahbagh protests began on February 5 hours after an international crimes tribunal sentenced Jamaat’s assistant general secretary Abdul Quader Molla to life in prison, to press for death penalty for all war criminals. (Source)
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