Hifazat-e Islam has withdrawn its Sunday general strike call, saying it does not want to get into politics.
A Dhaka leader told bdnews24.com that a general strike or hartal did not fit into the Hifazat agenda and therefore it was withdrawing the call.
“We approached the Boro Huzur (Shah Ahmad Shafi) for withdrawal,” Mufti Mizanur Rahman, a joint convenor of the Dhaka City unit of the Hifazat, told bdnews24.com at 5:45pm Thursday. “Our argument is that we are not a political organisation and that hartal is a political programme.”
The Chittagong-based outfit had called the dawn-to-dusk strike to protest the Monday morning police action to clear Motijheel in central Dhaka of its activists. It also wanted its Secretary General Junaid Babu Nagari, now being quizzed in custody by police, to be released.
Hifazat later claimed that the Sunday’s event, a so-called blockade of the capital followed by a rally, went out of its hands and that other opposition groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami took advantage of the situation.
Police, aided by RAB and paramilitary BGB, cleared the business district in a 15-minute operation starting around 3:30am Monday
The police drive has sparked off calls by the BNP and Jamaat for an inquiry into alleged killing of thousands.
Police and the senior government functionaries including the Prime Minister have rubbished the claims, saying there was ‘zero casualty’ during the action.
They argued the deaths on Sunday and the day after were due to the clashes between police and the protesters.
At least five law-enforcers, including three policemen and two border guards, were among the dead. The toll reached 36, including 19 in Narayanganj, five in Hathajari, Chittagong, one in Bagerhat.
In the capital, the day-long mayhem claimed at least 11.
Source: Bd news24