Ban Jamaat for its 'criminal acts'

(Front row from left) Ramendu Majumdar, Dr Sarwar Ali, Syed Shamsul Haque, AK Khandker, Sultana Kamal, Kamal Lohani and Ayesha Khanam alongside (back row) Abed Khan, Dr Baharul Alam and Nasir Uddin Yousuff sing the national anthem at a national convention organised by Bangladesh Rukhe Darao, a platform of progressive and pro-liberation forces, in the capital's Suhrawardy Udyan yesterday. Photo: Star

Bangladesh Rukhe Darao, a platform of progressive and pro-liberation forces, yesterday reiterated its demand that the Jamaat-e-Islami be banned immediately under the Anti Terrorism Act, 2009 for "its criminal activities".
InternatiCrimes Tribunal had identified Jamaat as a criminal organisation that committed genocide, rape and atrocities in association with the Pakistani occupation forces in 1971, it said.
The atrocities committed by Jamaat in the last few months were rarely perpetrated in the last four decades. “So, it's urgent to ban Jamaat,” said eminent journalist Abed Khan while reading out a declaration of a national convention organised by the group in the capital's Suhrawardy Udyan.
He added the opposition party and some local and international rights organisations were spreading propaganda to “foil” the ongoing war crimes trial, without giving any suggestion for amendments to the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act-1973.
Bangladesh Rukhe Darao was launched on April 20 this year. It has held rallies in divisional headquarters to press home a five-point demand, including banning of Jamaat and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir.
It also demands that the government expedite the war crimes trial and execute the verdicts, resist communal violence and stand by its victims, take the country forward with the spirit of the Liberation War, allow free thinking and resist attempts to turn the country into a Taliban-style state and uphold women's rights.
Jamaat is a criminal and communal organisation, Dhaka University Prof MM Akash yesterday said.
The party has many reasons to be banned, he said, and demanded that the government ban Jamaat through an executive order before the next parliamentary elections.
Imran H Sarker, spokesperson of Gonojagoron Mancha, said subversive activities of Jamaat-Shibir were at its pick now and these activities could not be stopped unless the organisation was banned.
Gonojagoron Mancha, a platform launched by a group of youths initially at Shahbagh intersection in the capital, has been calling for the capital punishment to all war criminals and a ban on Jamaat-Shibir for their role against the independence of Bangladesh in 1971.
Renowned litterateur Syed Shamsul Haque demanded banning of religion-based politics as, according to him, “religion-based politics is the root of all evils.”
He urged all progressive and pro-liberation forces to come forward to resist these reactionary forces.
Air Vice Marshal (retd) AK Khandakar, deputy chief of the liberation forces, said the defeated force of the Liberation War was very much active now and that it should be resisted.
Eminent rights activist Sultana Kamal, who presided over the national convention, said the political forces of the country had “betrayed” the spirit of the Liberation War and that was why the war crimes trial, which began 40 years after the independence, was facing obstruction.
“Why we can't give them [political parties] a signal that if you deviate from the spirit of the Liberation War, you won't be allowed in the country,” said Sultana Kamal, a former adviser to a caretaker government.
Eminent educationist Prof Anisuzzaman, whose written speech was read out by Liberation War Museum Trustee Ziauddin Tariq Ali, said freedom fighters had aspired for a non-communal Bangladesh, but the present constitution was not consistent with that spirit.
Former Justice Golam Rabbani, president of Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee; Sarowar Ali, Liberation War Museum trustee; cultural activist Kamal Lohani, Ajoy Roy, president of Shamprodayikata O Jangibad Birodhi Mancha; Rana Dasgupta, secretary general of Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha Christian Oikya Parishad; Nasiruddin Yusuf Bachchu, president of Sammilito Sanskritik Jote; Ayesha Khanam of Samajik Protirodh Committee, and garment workers leader Nazma Akhter, also spoke while Ramendu Majumdar moderated the programme.
Later, a national committee of the organisation was announced with Prof Anisuzzaman as president and Sultana Kamal as its convener.