Jamaat-e-Islami today called countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal for Thursday protesting arrest and remand of its ameer and top eight other leaders.  

The party announced the shutdown this evening, several hours into a court in Dhaka placed its Ameer Maqbul Ahmad, Secretary General Shafiqur Rahman and six other leaders on a ten-day remand for each in connection with two cases. 

Also read: Jamaat ameer, 7 other top leaders on 10-day remand

Hospital, ambulance, vehicles of fire service and newspapers, medicine shop will remain out of the hartal purview, according to a press release signed by M Alam, publicity affairs secretary of the party.

The press release stated that the “government has put the top leaders of the party behind bars implicating them in false, politically motivated and fabricated cases”.

Mentioning Jamaat as a valid political party, it said the government has been depriving the party of its political rights to hold rallies, demonstrations and others political programmes on the streets since the last seven years.

Earlier in the day, eight of the nine Jamaat leaders were placed on a ten-day remand for each in connection with two cases filed with Kadamtoli Police Station for creating anarchy among people during Durga Puja and Asurah and hatching plot to topple the government.

According to police, detectives detained them in Dhaka’s Uttara last night for holding a secret meeting there to carry out subversive activities. They were shown arrested in the two cases earlier in the day.

Jamaat's Nayeb-e-Ameer Mia Golam Parwar, also a former MP from Khulna-5, is among the detainees.