Dhaka siege to protect Islam, not against govt: Hefazat

Islami Chhatra Khelafat on Monday formed a team, 313 members of which would be ready to ‘embrace martyrdom if necessary’ to make the April 6 Dhaka blockade called by Hefajat-e-Islam, a success for protecting Islam.

The student of wing Fazlul Haque Amini’s Khalefat-e-Islami and the leaders of Hefajat-e-Islam’s coordination committees in Dhaka city and the adjoining areas held a meeting at the party’s temporary office at Lalbagh to discuss how to make the Dhaka blockade successful, said a press release of the organisation.

ICK leaders said they formed the team taking inspiration from the battle of Badr fought in 624.

Prophet Muhammad (SM) led 313 of his followers in the war.

Hefajat-e-Islam joint secretary general, Mufti Foyjullah, who is also the Islami Oikya Jote secretary general, gave the team and others a briefing to hold the programme successfully.

In his speech, Foyjullah said Hefajat-e-Islam is a disciplined non-violent and nonpolitical organization formed to protect and establish Islam in the country and the society.

He requested all to keep away from the atheists and said all Muslims should join the April 6 Dhaka-bound long-march to make it a success.  

On March 10, Hefajat-e-Islam chairman Shah Ahmed Shafi, announced the Dhaka blockade programme as part of the organization’s ongoing movement against anti-Islamic activities, reported New Age Chittagong correspondent.

Shafi is also the director general of Al-Jamiatul Ahlia Darul Ulum Muinul Islam, popularly known as the Hathazari Qaumi Madrasah in Chittagong,

The organizers said they took the programme for Dhaka bound long march to be followed by Dhaka blockade to realize their 13cdemands.

The Dhaka-bound long-march would begin from different corners of the country, they said.

Their demands include cancellation of ‘anti-Islamic’ education and woman policies, enactment of a blasphemy law providing for  capital punishment for maligning Islam and Quran, ending anti-Islamic campaign through blogging, exemplary punishment to those who mocked Allah, Prophet Muhammad (SM), release of all Islamic scholars and withdrawal of all cases against them.

They also want the reinstatement of the phrase ‘absolute trust and faith in Almighty Allah’ in the preamble of the Constitution of the Republic,

Addressing a conference at Laldighi Maidan on Monday evening, Hefazat-e-Islam amir Shah Ahmad Shafi urged the government not to obstruct the long march and Dhaka blockade programme.

‘We did not take any anti government programme. We have no political axe to grind. Our movement only seeks to introduce the laws of Allah’, said Shafi.

If the government creates any obstruction it would only prove that it’s an atheist regime, he said.

Hefazat-e Islam Bangladesh organised the conference, ‘Shan-e-Resalat.’ 

Islamic scholars, teachers from different madrassas, leaders of different Islamic parties spoke at twosessions of the conference.

The first session was chaired by Hefazat’s central senior nayeb-e-amir Muhibbullah Babunagari and the second session was chaired by Shah Ahmad Shafi.

Later the participants took the oath to lay down their lives, if necessary, to make the long march successful. (Source)

Lawyers’ protest continues against elevation of 3 HC judges

Pro-BNP-Jamaat lawyers on Monday continued to protest for the second day the elevation of three of the four High Court judges to the Appellate Division, superseding several senior judges, by waiving black flags in the Supreme Court Bar Association building.

They have also been opposing the appointment of AHM Shamsuddiin Choudhury as a justice, terming him ‘a controversial person for many reasons’.

Leaders of the lawyers backed by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its key ally the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami announced that they would

continue with staging demonstrations and hoisting black flags until April 4.

On Monday morning dozens of lawyers led by Jatiyatabadi Ainjibi Forum president Rafiqul Islam Mia and secretary general Mahbub Uddin Khokon staged a sit-in in front of the chief justice’s courtroom for five minutes.

Later, the protestors holding black flags returned to the Bar association building, chanting slogans against Justice Shamsuddin.

The demonstration led to shutting of the door of the chief justice’s courtroom, in which the six judges, including Justice Shamsuddin, were hearing the appeal filed by the government seeking capital punishment for Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah.

Quader was awarded life imprisonment by the International Crimes Tribunal for committing war crimes in 1971.

The door was locked inside at the order of the chief justice, Md Muzammel Hossain, who led the six-member bench.

No lawyer or journalist was allowed to enter or leave the courtroom until the court went for a recess at around 11:00am.

When the court resumed after the recess, it carried on the restriction imposed on entering and leaving the courtroom till the end of the day’s proceedings at about 1:00pm.  

‘We notice some people are coming, going and standing in the apex court. It is not a bazaar,’ the chief justice told attorney general Mahbubey Alam when some lawyers and journalists tried to leave the courtroom during the demonstration.

Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain said, ‘There is no instance any where in the world of people entering the apex court in this manner. Only the lawyers whose cases are enlisted for hearing can enter the courtroom in many countries.’

He also said, ‘There is a standing order that no person with electronic devices, such as mobile and camera, will enter the courtroom.’

Journalists can enter the courtroom ‘but there is a judgment of the Supreme Court on what they will write or not,’ said the chief justice. 

He said, ‘If you don’t cooperate with us, we will not permit anybody excepting the lawyers of the cases listed for hearing to enter the courtroom.’

The pro-BNP-Jamaat lawyers have been expressing their opposition to the elevation of Justice Siddiqur Rahman Miah, Justice Hasan Foez Siddique, and Justice Shamsuddin Choudhury by a

presidential order on Thursday.

The pro-BNP-Jamaat SCBA also requested the chief justice not to administer oaths to the ‘controversial judges’, keeping the interests of the judiciary and the nation in mind. (Source)

Rumi Squad suspends hunger strike

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)

SQC led killing of 52 in Ctg: martyr’s son

A prosecution witness on Monday said war crimes accused Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, MP, led Muslim League followers and Pakistani occupation army to shoot at and kill 52 people near Shakpur Primary

School in Boalia in Chittagong on April 20, 1971.

Babul Chakraborty Bulbul, the 24th witness in the war crimes case against Salauddin, also told the International Crimes Tribunal-1 that the followers of Salauddin in the Razakar Bahini with support from Pakistani occupation army committed genocide in his village Shakpura from April to December 14.

Bulbul, now 62, said that the Pakistani army troops and Muslim League men dragged his father out of his house and shot him to death on April 20, 1971.

The witness identified Salauddin as the son of Convention Muslim League leader Fazlul Quader Chowdhury.

He said that 300 to 350 people were killed at different times in his village during the war.

Salauddin, facing trial on 23 counts of crimes against humanity, was in the dock.

Later, during cross-examination by Salauddin’s defence counsel Ahsanul Huq, Bulbul said that he did not remember whether he had not mentioned the names of Salauddin or his father Fazlul in his statement to the war crimes investigation officer.

The witness said that he could not recollect whether he had filed a case on February 28, 1972 in connection with the killing of his father.

He, however, said that the villagers had filed a case collectively.

Bulbul said that he could not recall  whether he had mentioned the date of his father’s killing as May 16, 1971 and whether Salauddin and Fazlul were named as accused in that 1972 case.

The defence lawyer, at this point, jokingly asked whether Bulbul took any treatment for ‘not remembering’ and the witness answered in the negative.

The tribunal, however, did not record the question as the prosecution objected saying that it was humiliating for the witness.

On completion of his cross-examination, the tribunal adjourned the proceedings until April 4.

Earlier, Mizanul Islam, a senior defence lawyer for detained Jamaat amir Matiur Rahman Nizami, completed the cross-examination of Rustom Ali Mollah, the third prosecution witness against his client.

During the cross-examination, Rustom said that he did not see Nizami face to face after liberation of the country but he saw him earlier.

He also said that he did not hear Nizami’s name after independence.

Rustom is a retired security guard at Mohammadpur Physical Training College.

Nizami was in the dock.

On March 19, Rustom testified that Nizami, Ghulam Azam and Ali Ahsan Mojahid visited the camp at MPTC during the liberation war.

He also said that the Mohammadpur Physical Training College was used by the Pakistani occupation army as a torture centre and a makeshift Razakar training camp during the Liberation War.

On completion of his cross-examination, the tribunal adjourned the hearing until April 15. (Source)

Eminent citizens demand MPs submit wealth statements

Eminent citizens at a seminar on Monday demanded that parliament members submit their wealth statements to the election commission in accordance with their pre-election commitment.

They made the plea at a seminar on ‘Political Will Can Play Main Role in Curbing Corruption’ organised by the Anti-Corruption Commission as part of its observance of the anti-corruption week that began on March 26.

The seminar, presided over by ACC chairman Ghulam Rahman, was addressed by the chairman of the Center for Policy Dialogue, Rehman Sobhan, Jahangirnagar University vice-chancellor M Anwar Hossain, Former education minister and BNP leader M Osman Faruque, Communist Party of Bangladesh president Mujahiduld Islam Selim and Transparency International Bangladesh executive director Iftekharuzzaman.

Other speakers at the seminar were lawmakers Fazle Rabbi and AKM Rahmatullah, former adviser to caretaker government M Hafiz Uddin Khan, information commissioner Sadeka Halim, Bangladesh garment manufacturers and exporters association president M Atiqul Islam, Bangladesh environmental lawyers association chief executive Syeda Rizwana Hasan, former president at FBCCI AK Azad, Susasoner Jonno Nagorik general secretary Badiul Alam Majumdar, BRAC executive director Mahabub Hossain and  educationist  Jamilur Reza Choudhury.

Addressing the seminar, Rehman Sobhan demanded of lawmakers to submit their wealth statements to the election commission.

‘This is not a revolutionary demand, they were committed to the people to do it,’ he said.

He urged the government to create a fund for political parties to bear the expenses of carrying out their political activities and electioneering.

Rehman said a ‘democracy fund’ would ensure transparency and accountability of the election costs of the political parties and their candidates.

Speaking at the seminar, M Anwar Hossain claimed that some army officers had amassed huge wealth through misuse of power but the ACC did not take any action against them.

‘If the ACC goes to Bangladesh Road Transport Authority and the Land Records Office they would find huge lands and vehicles owned by those army officers,’ he said.

Anwar was also critical of the role of the former ACC chairman, Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury, also a former army chief, and said that he didn’t take action against corrupt army officials and he himself was the main actor of several types of corruption.

M Osman Faruque said that corruption would be reduced if political leaders and other organisations of society take initiative to protest corruption everywhere.

He said that the ACC is not functioning independently. The commission takes its decisions following the government’s instructions that had been proved by the investigation related to scams involving Hallmark, Padma bridge project and Destiny.

Mujahiduld Islam Selim said that a corruption-free society was not possible while the country’s economy is run by capitalism.

He said that 95 per cent people stood against corruption but they were victimised by five per cent corrupt people.

Iftekharuzzaman said that politics, administration and businesses help breed corruption in society. ‘Political leaders use people’s mandate for their own business,’ he said. (Source)