The acting speaker M Shawkat Ali told a delegation of the Shahbagh protests that he would request the government to initiate moves to ban Jamaat-e-Islami.
The Shahbagh protesters met the speaker in his office in the national assembly complex when they went there to hand over to Shawkat more than one crore signatures collected seeking to push for their
six-point demands, including a ban on Jamaat and its student organisation Islami Chhatra Shibir and death penalty for all war criminals.
‘I will convey your demand to the government and request it to immediately initiate moves to ban Jamaat that acted against the war of independence and committed crimes against humanity,’ the speaker told the delegation explaining that it was the government, particularly the president, that can meet the demand.
Shawkat said that he stood by the demands of the Shahbagh protests and that he considered himself part of it as the youths at Shahbagh had shaken the nation.
‘You have made what we, the elders, had failed to do or had to compromise on to some extent,’ he said. ‘Peace and order cannot be achieved as long as razakars will be there.’
The Shahbagh protests delegation — composed of blogger Imran H Sarkar, blogger Kaniz Fatema and student leader Mehedi Hasan Tamal — told the speaker that they were handing over the people’s verdict to him and expected that the speaker would take up the matter with the government as a representative of the signatories to the demands.
The signatures were collected from all protest venues set up at the call of the Shahbagh protests across the country during February 22–March 22 to push for six-point demands.
The other demands include an early arrest of and action against activists of Jamaat and Shibir threatening a civil war and stern action against political parties, forces, individuals and institutions trying to save war criminals.
The protesters also demanded an early arrest of collaborators, who were convicted or faced trial but released after 1975, and their trial in war crimes tribunals.
They demanded a ban on all enterprises having links with Jamaat and all cultural institutions run by war criminals.
After meeting the speaker, the delegation told reporters that they might consider tougher programmes to push for their demands if the government failed to begin the process to ban Jamaat, which ‘continued acting against the state even after the country’s independence till April 4, 1972.’
The Shahbagh protests at a briefing in the evening, meanwhile, warned tougher agitation programmes including march towards Dhaka, mass hunger strike, long march, rallies, nationwide peaceful siege and sit-ins to push for their demands.
Imran also called on people to reject the dawn-to-dusk countrywide general strike Islami Chhatra Shibir called for Tuesday. The BNP-led opposition alliance, however, later also called for a general strike for the day.
Earlier in the day, several hundred protesters gathered at Shahbagh and marched towards the national assembly complex about midday. Although a number of student leaders joined the procession, no senior leaders of the ruling Awami League-backed Chhatra League were present.
The protesters carried the signatures in a truck along with their march. The police first tried to stop them at Bangla Motors but they broke through. The police finally stopped the marchers at Farmgate by blocking the road with a bus parked across.
Before heading for the national assembly complex along with two bloggers, Imran said that if their demand was not met by April 4 when they would walk in a procession towards the Prime Minister’s Office, they would announce stern programmes.
The Shahbagh protests broke out February 5 hours after International Crimes Tribunal 2 sentenced Jamaat’s assistant general secretary Abdul Quader Molla to life in prison, demanding death penalty for all war criminals. (Source)
