Another daylong nationwide hartal, called by Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, began at 6am today (Wednesday) in protest against the ICT-2’s decision to pronounce its verdict against Jamaat secretary general and war crimes accused Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid later in the day.
Jamaat acting secretary general Rafiqul Islam Khan in a statement on Tuesday called the hartal after the tribunal declared that it will pronounce the verdict today.
Rafiqul Islam said they are enforcing the hartal in protest against ‘judicial conspiracy of killing’ against Mujahid.
It is the third straight hartal enforced by the Islamist party as it observed another two daylong shutdowns on Monday and Tuesday following the ICT-1’s verdict against Jamaat former chief Ghulam Azam. The hartals were marked by the killing of nine people, vandalism, arrests, explosions of crude bombs and ransacking and torching of vehicles.
Jamaat also enforced hartal on the days the tribunals had pronounced verdicts against its leaders Quader Mollah, Delwar Hossain Sayedee and Muhammad Kamaruzzaman.
On Tuesday, a joint bench of Judge Obaidul Hasan and also chairman of the International Crimes Tribunal-2 (ICT-2) announced that it would give verdict in the case against Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid on Wednesday for his alleged crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.
Seven counts of charges, including that of murder, genocide and conspiracy to kill the country’s intellectuals during the Liberation War, were brought against the top Jamaat leader.
On Monday, the ICT-1 sentenced nonagenarian retired Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Ghulam Azam to 90 years to serve the jail term unto death for his crimes against humanity during the Liberation War.
Meanwhile, huge law enforcers, including members of elite force Rab, have been deployed in the city to fend off any untoward incidents and ensure people’s security during the hartal hours in the city.
Apart from the ones in uniforms, plainclothes police are also there on alert with video and still cameras at different strategic points of the city to identify troublemakers during the daylong shutdown.
Source: UNBConnect
