Case against Mahmudur Rahman

Mahmudur Rahman, Acting Editor of pro-BNP “Amar Desh” has been implicated in five cases, accused of whipping up religious passions and incitement to cause public disorder.

The cases have been filed in Ramna and Shahbagh police stations, Assistant Commissioner (Ramna Zone) Shibly Noman said.

The Shahbagh protesters have served a 24-hour ultimatum, saying Rahman must be arrested by Saturday evening.

Twenty two top leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student affiliate Islami Chhatra Shibir have been implicated in these five cases.

They include Jamaat-e-Islami’s Secretary General Maulana Rafiqul Islam Khan, its Naeb-e-Amir and lawmaker Hamidur Rahman Azad, Islami Chatra Shibir President Delowar Hossain and its Secretary General Mohammed Abdul Jabbar.

The police official said the cases have been filed also against some 5,000 unidentified persons, along with 31 named, on charges of attacking law enforcers after Friday prayers, for trying to occupy Shahbagh’s ‘Ganajagaran Mancha’ and instigating the “religious sentiments” of the people to create chaos.

Violence was unleashed in different areas of the capital, including Baitul Mukkaram, Paltan, Kantaban and Mirpur, during a protest programme called by the 12 ‘Islamist’ and like-minded parties after Friday prayers.

The ‘Islamists’ were demanding ‘punishment to anti-religious bloggers’ and protesting against a call by the Shahbagh demonstrators for a ban on Jamaat and capital punishment for convicted war criminals

The mob ransacked and torched protest podiums and Shaheed Minars and clashed with the police in Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Bogra, Sylhet and other areas.

Police said Jamaat activists used the protest call given by the ‘Islamist’ and like-minded parties as a pre-text to violence. Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir has blamed Jamaat for Friday’s violence.

Alamgir on Friday said ‘exemplary actions’ would be taken against those carrying out attacks on innocent people, including police and journalists.

The protesters, from the Ganajagaran Mancha, called for nationwide demonstration hours after suspected Jamaat-e-Islami activists launched “massive and concerted” attacks across Bangladesh.

“The Jamaat-leaning Amar Desh has instigated (Friday’s) attacks. It’s (Acting) Editor Mahmudur Rahman must be detained within 24 hours,” said Imran H Sarker, one of the organisers of the movement demanding death sentences for all convicted war criminals and a ban on the Jamaat on Friday.

Tens of thousands of people, mostly youths, thronged the Shahbagh intersection on Feb 5 after the second war crimes tribunal of Bangladesh sentenced Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla to life in prison for crimes against humanity during the 1971 War of Liberation.

On Feb 15, the 11th day of the demonstration, blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider, one of the Shahbagh protest organisers, was hacked to death near his Pallabi residence in Dhaka.

Blogging under the pen name ‘Thaba Baba’, Rajib tried to shed light on the “violent nature” of Jamaat and its student front, Islami Chhatra Shibir.

After his death, some newspapers ran reports terming him as an ‘atheist’, ‘apostate’ and alleged that Rajib used to “write against Islam”.

On Friday, the BNP-leaning Amar Desh’s lead news headline, roughly translated in English, read, “Bloggers committing contempt of religion and court”.

The daily earlier ran “instigating reports” on the Shahbagh protests, which the demonstrators have termed as “fabricated”.

On Thursday, the demonstrators gave the government until Mar 26 to start the process of trying those parties that had committed war crimes during the nation’s Liberation War and ban Jamaat.

Meanwhile, the 12 Islamist like-minded parties announced agitation programmes demanding punishments for the bloggers, who had “disdained religion” and accused of a “conspiracy” to ban religion-based politics.

Supporters of the parties took out processions in capital Dhaka and elsewhere and launched a spree of violent attacks before clashing with the police.

The demonstrators attacked and smashed local protest podiums, erected to express solidarity with the Shahbag demonstrators, in Chittagong and Rajshahi. They vandalised and torched the Sylhet Central Shaheed Minar.