The Jamaat-e-Islami now says its 48-hour countrywide shutdown is not to protest against a High Court order cancelling its registration as a political party.
The party had called the strike within hours of the court verdict, which termed its registration with the Election Commission ‘illegal and void’.
The Jamaat issued a media statement on Tuesday in response to criticism by the Law Minister.
“The Jamaat-e-Islami did not call the shutdown against the court verdict,” party’s executive committee member Hamidur Rahman Azad said in a statement.
On Aug 1, the party’s Acting Secretary General Rafiqul Islam Khan had said they were refraining from enforcing general strikes, considering the people’s sufferings ahead of the Eid.
However, the statement said, “Our programmes against the verdict which is unconstitutional, undemocratic, and conflicting with fundamental rights, will continue.”
The Jamaat had then called shutdowns for Aug 12 and 13 but later rescheduled it to begin from Aug 13.
A High Court bench has summoned Khan and the party’s publicity wing’s Md Ibrahim for the strike call against the court verdict.
They have been ordered to present themselves before the court on Sep 16 to explain why they should not be charged with contempt of court.
Jamaat’s Sunday statement, appealing to people to make the shutdown a success, stopped short of saying that the programme was to protest against the court’s order.
It said the strike was against government plots to eliminate the party by killing its top brass, currently behind bars, and clinging on to power by not conceding the demand for a caretaker administration to oversee the looming general elections.
Like on previous occasions, Md Ibrahim on Tuesday sent Hamidur Rahman Azad’s statement protesting against Minister Shafique Ahmed.
Ahmed earlier in the day said a court’s verdict could not be altered by enforcing strikes or holding rallies.
Ruling Awami League leaders had been criticising the Jamaat for calling strikes against court verdicts.
Azad, one of the party’s two MPs, said, “The Jamaat has called for the strike in protest against the government’s mass arrests, tortures, and plots to eliminate the party.”
Source: Bd news24