Jamaat-e-Islami may be banned by March, says Awami League leader Hanif

Awami League leader Mahbub-Ul Alam Hanif expects the Jamaat-e-Islami to be outlawed as a political party by March next year.

He was speaking to reporters on Jamaat's shutdown on Thursday in protest against the Supreme Court scrapping the party's Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid's petition for a review of his death sentence.
 
"The High Court has already banned the Jamaat's politics. Its registration has been cancelled," Hanif said at the Awami League president's Dhanmondi office.
 
"The matter is now with the Appellate Division. The legal procedure (to ban Jamaat) is underway. I hope it will be settled by March," he added.
 
He also said the people had rejected its shutdown call.
 
The High Court in an Aug 1, 2013 ruling had held Jamaat's registration as a political party illegal.
 
The party challenged the verdict in the top appeals court.
 
The process to ban the Jamaat as a 'war-criminal party' was also underway, Hanif said.
 
It had opposed Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan during the Liberation War but has shown no remorse for its role.
 
Instead, its leaders have defended their position, saying they had the right to side with the Pakistani forces in 1971.
 
In the verdict against the Jamaat ideologue Ghulam Azam in 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal had called it a 'party of criminals'.
 
On Aug 19 that year, the tribunal’s investigators said they were contemplating a probe into the Jamaat's role in war crimes.