Awami League comes under fire for Hifazat pact

Professor Muntasir Mamun has called into question the Awami League’s entente with radical outfit Hifazat-e Islam.

The Dhaka University history teacher asks what the difference between the Awami League and the BNP, whose key ally is Jamaat-e-Islami, is if the ruling party also makes compromise with a religion-based organisation.

The university’s Prof Emeritus Anisuzzaman says it will be a ‘grave mistake’ for any democratic party to forge an alliance with any religion-based party for votes.

They made the remarks at a seminar titled ‘Murder attempt on defiant writer Zafar Iqbal: What the barriers to banning politics in the name of religion are’ at the National Press Club in Dhaka on Thursday.

The speakers at the programme criticised the government for changing textbooks and recognising Qawmi madrasa degree following demands by hardline Hifazat.

“If the democratic parties look to woo votes by pandering to them (religion-based organisations) with sweet words, it will be a grave mistake. No democratic government should play the religion card,” Prof Anisuzzaman said.   

Prof Mamun asked, “If you have to compromise with Hifazat for the sake of votes, what will be the difference between the BNP, Jamaat and the Awami League?”

Information Minister Hasanul Haque Inu said it was a ‘political crime’ to harbour Hifazat.

The president of JaSoD, a key ally of the Awami League, expressed frustration at their ‘failure to take Bangladesh’s politics to a secular state’.

In the key note paper, Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee President Shahriar Kabir said it would not be possible for the government to ensure security of people like Prof Muhammed Zafar Iqbal if it kept bowing down to Hifazat demands.

He alleged Jamaat and Hifazat were out to radicalise the Myanmar Rohingyas at the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

Former Air Force officer Ishfaq Ilahi Choudhury and former Army officer Md Abdur Rashid also said such compromises would never bring any good.

International Crimes Tribunal Prosecutor Tureen Afroz, among others, also spoke at the seminar.

Freedom fighter sculptor Ferdousi Priyabhashini who died recently was remembered at the opening of the seminar. Shyamoli Nasrin Chowdhury, and Ferdousi’s children Karu Titas and Fuleshwari Priyabhashini spoke on the occasion.