Bangladesh Islamists Say Police Force Halt to Blasphemy Rally
A hardline Bangladeshi religious group said Monday it called off a rally in Dhaka after police barred its leaders from leaving a madrassa fearing a rise in violence just weeks before elections.
Radical Islamic group Hefajat-e-Islam had planned a rally for Tuesday to push for a new blasphemy law and other demands, in a resumption of protests held earlier this year that left at least 39 people dead.
Hefajat officials said police and an elite security force prevented leader Allama Shah Ahmad Shafi and his deputy from travelling from their madrassa near the port city of Chittagong for the rally, by stopping their car as they tried to leave.
"Police have barred our leaders including Allama Shafi from travelling to Dhaka and also barred us from holding tomorrow's rally," Noor Hussain Kashemi, Hefajat's chief in Dhaka, told Agence France Presse.
But police said Shafi agreed to call off the rally amid fears of inflaming already high tensions in the capital ahead of the general polls scheduled for January 5.
"We have requested him (Shafi) not to go to Dhaka considering the current condition. He listened to us and cancelled his journey," Mohammad Ismail, a police chief in Chittagong told AFP.
Hefajat hit the headlines in Bangladesh in May when it held mass protests in Dhaka that descended into running street battles with police to push for a blasphemy law that includes the death penalty.
Leaders threatened a nationwide campaign to oust the government unless their demands, which also included a ban on mixing of genders outside marriage, were met, before security forces launched a crackdown.
Bangladesh is already reeling from almost daily bloodshed over the elections which the opposition and its allies have vowed to boycott. Opposition activists have blocked roads and train lines and clashed with police as part of protests and strikes over the polls.
More than 115 people have been killed since late October when an opposition alliance launched the protests calling for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to step aside and make way for a neutral caretaker government to oversee the election - a demand Hasina has refused.
Source: Agence France Presse
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://naharnet.com/stories/en/111091 |