The youth protesters of Ganajagaran Mancha on Friday again reaffiarmed the resolve to not leave the streets unless convicted war criminals were executed and Jamaat-e-Islami was banned.
“It is the vow of students, workers and other professionals to build a nation free of Jamaat,” Ganajagaran Mancha spokesman Imran H Sarkar told a Mancha rally at Ashulia.
The two-hour rally kicked off at around 4pm with the recitation of verses from the holy Quran and religious books of other faiths.
A one-minute silence was also observed in memory of those who lost their lives in the recent factory fires, including the one at the Tazreen Fashions Ltd and the martyrs of 1971 Liberation War, followed by singing of the national anthem.
Imran said millions of people, including students and workers, are building up a combined resistance against a quarter, as they did in 1971 to free Bangladesh from the clutches of the Pakistani occupation force, through the on-going demonstrations.
He also dubbed the movement the second freedom fight of Bangladesh.
Thousands of people from across the social divide, most of them factory workers, rallied at Ganajagaran Mancha and chanted slogans demanding death penalty for war criminals.
Addressing the female workers present there, Imran said, “Fanatic Jamaat-e-Islami is trying to create a hostile environment in the country at a time when the women have taken to the streets against them.”
Udichi Shilpi Gosthi of Savar Upazila began performing mass music at the stage at around 2.30pm.
The rally, moderated by blogger Mahmudul Haque Munsi, was the first ever programme of the demonstrators outside Dhaka. Student leaders took turns in addressing it.
The speakers refuted religious group Hefajat-e-Islam’s allegation that Ganajagaran Mancha was demonstrations by atheists.
Addressing the rally, Bappaditya Basu, the President of Bangladesh Chhatra Maitri, said the Mancha never made any statement against any religion.
“We’ve learned patriotism through our religion. Those who lack patriotism can never be religious,” he said.
Hefajat-e-Islam had called for resisting the rally at Ashulia as they did at Chittagong.
Hefajat’s Ashulia unit Convenor Mufti Monir Hossain said they would resist the rally ‘at any cost’ but could not due to heavy police and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) deployment at the spot.
Basu expressed his anger for foiling of the Mancha rally at Chittagong amid resistance by Hefajat.
He castigated BNP chief Khaleda Zia for her recent comments that the youths gathering at Shahbagh were atheists.
“Please restrain your language. You’ve no right to insult the people,” he told Khaleda.
Ruling Awami League’s student affiliate Bangladesh Chhatra League General Secretary Siddiqui Nazmul Alam alleged that efforts were on to brand Ganajagaran activists atheists.
Some of the workers, who thronged the rally venue, said they skipped work to join the gathering.
“I have never seen such a scene in my entire life,”40-year old Jahidul Hasan, a shopkeeper at Jamgarha, told bdnews24.com. “The boys have shown us how much they feel for the country.”
Some of the factories at the industrial belt announced holidays ahead of the rally.
Assaduzzaman, a worker at one of those factories, Natural Sweater Factory, said he came there at around 1pm.
“My father is a freedom fighter. I have come here with my whole family,” he said.
“We want to see all the war criminals walk the gallows,” he said.
Meanwhile, five crude bombs exploded in Beron and Gazir Char at around 1:30pm, Ashulia Police Station Officer-in-Charge Sheikh Badrul Alam said, leaving two people injured.
Though the OC said the motive behind the explosions was not clear, many felt it was an attempt to foil the rally, because the explosions were barely two kilometres from the site of the gathering.
Organisers said the Shahbagh protests would continue as usual, along with Ashulia.
Shahbagh protests began on Feb 5, hours after the International Crimes Tribunal-2 pronounced life in jail for Jamaat-e-Islami Assistant Secretary General Abdul Quader Molla.
The protesters said the verdict was ‘lenient’ given the crimes he had committed in 1971.
The Ganajagaran Mancha spread to the corners of Bangladesh uniting people against ‘war criminals’.
Source: Bd news24