Dhaka, July 4 (IANS) Bangladesh Sunday braced for another round of agitation by opposition parties who have re-united to demand the release of arrested top Islamist leaders.
Opposition leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia Saturday night had a discussion with leaders of Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ), a conglomerate of Islamist parties and gave a five-day ultimatum to the government to release three top officials of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), the country’s largest Islamist party.
A two-day stir was announced followed by a human chain formation Wednesday and relay fast for two days thereafter.
The Daily Star Sunday carried photos of large-scale violence and damage to public property by agitating Jamaat activists.
Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) had moved away from the Jamaat and the IOJ after their debacle in parliamentary poll held in December 2008.
However, they have reunited after the detention of Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami, the Jamat’s chief and two other high profile officials, Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojahid and Delwar Hossain Sayedee.
The BNP and the IOJ have shed reservations about Jamaat for a united struggle,
IOJ chairman Fazlul Haque Amini was quoted as saying by The Daily Star.
Amini announced ‘more intensified struggle’ after the holy Ramadan month against the ‘anti-Islamic, anti-people and anti-nation’ activities of the government, United News of Bangladesh (UNB) news agency reported.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said her government’s plans to hold ‘war crimes trials’ had apparently unnerved the BNP and its allies.
The detained Jamaat trio is said to top the list of hundreds of Islamist activists who allegedly attacked unarmed civilians during the 1971 freedom movement.
The government is moving to hold what it calls trial for ‘war crimes’.
‘The real face of the BNP and its chairperson has been exposed. They often speak about the liberation war, but in fact they are busy in protecting the war criminals,’
Hasina told her party workers Saturday.
