Jamaat strike call coincides with verdict

Jamaat-e-Islami will enforce a Bangladesh-wide shutdown on Monday when the verdict on the trial of its guru and former chief Ghulam Azam is due.

Party’s acting Secretary General Rafiqul Islam Khan in a media statement on Sunday afternoon announced the agitation programme.

“We are calling a daylong countrywide shutdown for Monday demanding release of Professor Ghulam Azam and protesting against the government’s conspiracies,” it said.

The party, itself accused of committing war crimes by the international crimes tribunals, called for shutdowns on the days verdicts were delivered on their leaders Abdul Quader Molla, Delwar Hossain Sayedee and Mohammad Kamaruzzaman.

Its activists had orchestrated countrywide violence claiming lives of over 70 people after Sayedee was sentenced to death.

Just before calling for the shutdown, a group of Jamaat and its affiliate, Islami Chhatra Shibir, paraded the city streets and attacked policemen in the capital’s Bijoynagar. They torched a vehicle used by police and damaged nine others.

In its maiden verdict, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 sentenced former Jamaat leader Abul Kalam Azad alias Bachchu Razakar to death on Jan 21 this year.

The second verdict came the following month against the party’s Assistant Secretary General Molla on Feb 5. He was sentenced to life triggering a mass upsurge demanding death for the ‘Butcher of Mirpur’.

Jamaat had enforced violent general strikes for two consecutive days, the day of the verdict and the following day.

Later that month, on Feb 28, Jamaat No. 2 Sayedee was sentenced to death. The party called three consecutive days of shutdown. Violence during the strike was more focused on destroying Bangladesh’s infrastructure and government and political party offices were attacked.

Over 70 people including, policemen were killed during the weeklong violence.

Another Jamaat Assistant Secretary General Kamaruzzaman was sentenced to walk the gallows on May 9. The party did not call for any shutdown on the day since the BNP-led 18-Party alliance was enforcing one. However, three days later, Jamaat called for a shutdown protesting against the verdict.

The prosecution has alleged Ghulam Azam, then chief of Jamaat’s East Pakistan wing, had taken position against Bangladesh’s struggle for freedom and led the torture and execution of Bengalis during the 1971 Liberation War.

He has been accused of five war crimes charges including complicity, planning and conspiracy during the war. People for long had been demanding he be tried for his role during the War of Independence.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Masudur Rahman told bdnews24.com security measures had been ratcheted up to avert any untoward incident and close-circuit cameras would be installed at key points of the city.

“We will work with enough capacity to tackle any type of anarchy,” he said.