B'desh bans Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir under anti-terrorism law after unrest

    Dhaka, Aug 1 (PTI) Bangladesh on Thursday banned the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir under anti-terrorism law following the recent nationwide unrest over the quota system for government jobs, accusing the fundamentalist party of instigating protests that left at least 150 people dead.
    A gazette notification issued by the Home Ministry said the government possesses "enough evidence" that the Jamaat-e-Islami and its front organisation Islami Chhatra Shibir were involved in recent killings, destructive and terrorist activities directly and through incitement."
    "As the government believes that Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir and its front organisations are involved with terrorist activities, the government, following the Section 18 (1) of the Anti-Terrorism Act-2009, declared Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir and its front organisations banned as political party and entity," it said.
    Security has been beefed up across the country in the wake of the ban on the Islamist party, a key ally of former premier Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
    Speaking at an event, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Thursday she believes that the Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir may "go underground and engage in destructive activities’ after their ban and will have to be dealt with as a ‘militant group’.
    "As such, we have to deal with them as a militant group and work together to protect the people," she said. “There will be no place for militants on Bangladeshi soil."
    Jamaat-e-Islami’s Ameer Dr. Shafiqur Rahman strongly condemned the executive order banning what he called Bangladesh's "oldest traditional democratic party" by violating the Constitution.
    "We strongly condemn and protest this unconstitutional, undemocratic and unjust decision of the government," he said in a statement.
    He appealed to Bangladeshi people to "systematically raise their voice to protest against the government's mass killings, disregard of human rights, oppression and the latest unconstitutional decision to ban" his party.
    "At the same time, I call upon the world's democratic countries, institutions, human rights organizations and organizations and the conscience of the world to condemn the undemocratic activities of the incumbent dummy government of Bangladesh," he said, as he ruled out Jamaat's links with terrorism and anarchism.
    Meanwhile, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said any violent reaction to the decision by the party would be dealt with severely as security agencies were ordered to enforce a stricter vigil.
    The government on Tuesday decided to ban the Jamaat-e-Islami following the deadly nationwide students’ protests over quotas in government jobs, accusing it of exploiting the movement that left at least 150 people dead.
    In a related development, police on Thursday freed six leaders of the Students Against Discrimination as they were taken into custody for their “own safety” last week with a police spokesman saying the “quota movement coordinators have been returned to their families this afternoon".
    According to media reports, key leader of the movement Nahid Islam and two others were forcibly discharged from a hospital in Dhaka on Friday last by police and kept in custody.
    The ban on Jamaat comes after a meeting of the ruling Awami League-led 14-party alliance passed a resolution earlier this week that the Islamist party must be banned from politics.
    The decision to ban Jamaat comes over 50 years after its initial prohibition in 1972 for "misusing religion for political purposes".
    The Jamaat opposed Bangladesh's 1971 independence from Pakistan and sided with the Pakistani troops during the Liberation War.
    The gazette also cited the Jamaat-e-Islami and its front organisation's role in 1971 as one of four reasons for banning the party.
    The party, founded in 1941 in undivided India, was first banned in 1972, the year Bangladesh framed its Constitution, which disbanded the functioning of any association or union or political party based on religion.
    But the subsequent military government led by General Ziaur Rahman revoked the ban by issuing a martial law proclamation, which allowed Jamaat to refloat and years later became a crucial partner of the then prime minister Khaleda Zia’s 2001-2006 four-party alliance government. Two senior Jamaat leaders were inducted into her cabinet.
    The Jamaat remained active despite losing its registration and being barred from elections due to court rulings.
    The party was allegedly involved in the recent violence surrounding the protests of the quota reform movement, which the government has cited as a reason for the ban.
    Violence gripped Bangladesh for almost the entire of July when the protests that had started in universities and colleges earlier this month, quickly turned into a widespread agitation against Prime Minister Hasina and her government’s policies.
    The government called in the Army to quell protests against job quotas after the unrest left at least 150 dead and several thousand people, including policemen, wounded and major government installations damaged.
    "From now on, the party cannot carry on its politics using its name,” Law Minister Anisul Huq told reporters on Thursday.
    Bangladesh in 2009 initiated a process to try the key collaborators of Pakistani troops in 1971 on charges of crimes against humanity and six top leaders of Jamaat and one of BNP were hanged after their trial in two special war crimes tribunals while the apex Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld the judgments.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)