Ganajagaran Mancha has capped its anti-communal road march to Thakurgaon with the call to resist the Jamaat-e-Islami, the party which opposed independence and purportedly perpetrated attacks on the Hindus.
The march, which began from Dhaka on Friday, ended at the Shaheed Minar on Sunday after a string of street and public rallies on the way to the northern region.
Addressing a rally in Thakurgaon, Mancha spokesperson Imran H Sarker told the ruling Awami League, “Fundamentalist Jamaat and Shibir that are carrying out communal violence across the country must be banned from politics immediately.
“Sixteen crore people have already taken their decision on Jamaat. But only politicians are left to decide,” he observed.
“I am asking those who are in government to ban Jamaat from politics and make the country free of communalism.”
The Mancha, which has been demonstrating since February last year for maximum punishment to all 1971 war criminals, had began its road march to Thakurgaon after the one to Jessore’s Maloparha where Hindu minorities had faced attacks after the Jan 5 general election.
Thousands of people who joined the last rally in Thakurgaon on Sunday pledged to build a communalism-free Bangladesh.
One of the organisers, Jagannath University student Lucky Aktar, said she strongly believed that Bangladesh will be free of Jamaat and its student front Islami Chhatra Shibir one day.
Thousands of locals in motorcycles and pick-up trucks joined the convoy of the road march while it was on its way to Thakurgaon Sadar Upazila’s Gorheya Union after a street rally at Dinajpur’s Birganj at noon.
Hundreds of people also raised slogans standing at roundabouts of the roads as the Mancha activists marched on.
Imran spoke at the rally on the Battala field beside Garheya Ashram.
“Jamaat is involved in all riots that have so far occurred since 1947. Still, many people consider them to be a political party,” he said.
“They kill people, burn cars. They set fire to people’s homesteads and ransack cooked food. Nothing, from school books to the Quran, Gita and Bible, can escape from them.”
Imran urged politicians to express solidarity with the Mancha’s demand for a ban on Jamaat.
“We do not want to wait any more. We have agitated on the roads for 11 months. We gave the government a six-point demand to meet.”
“Either you favour a ban on them or take the responsibility of their all misdeeds, including killings of people and burning of temples,” he said addressing the government.
The road march started from Dhaka’s Shahbagh and ended in Thakurgaon via Gazipur-Tangail-Sirajganj-Bogra-Gaibandha-Rangpur-Nilphamari-Dinajpur.
The Ganajagaran Mancha held six public rallies and 15 street rallies in different places and visited three areas where attacks were carried out on the Hindus.
A street rally was cancelled after the road march convoy came under bomb attack, but another unscheduled one was attended by spokesperson Imran.
Crude bombs were hurled by suspected Jamaat loyalists at the convoy three times on Friday evening before it could enter Bogra town. On Saturday evening, it faced another assault while entering Dinajpur.
To save the convoy, Mancha activists delayed their return to Dhaka by a day after the attacks but they did not give in to fear. They went hungry as they attended street and public rallies one after another.
On Sunday, the last day of the march, emotions flooded the minds of the victims at Dinajpur’s Kornai and Thakurgaon’s Gorheya when they found the Mancha activists at their side to support them.
After the ending rally at Thakurgaon, one of the key Mancha organisers, Mahmudul Haque Munsi told bdnews24.com that they would prepare an observation on the affected areas after returning to Dhaka on Monday.
Source: bdnews24
