Cops foil Hefajat procession in capital

Police today foiled a Hefajat-e Islam move to bring out a procession at Kamrangairchar in the capital protesting what they called "government action" on Hefajat’s May 5 rally last year.

Several hundreds of Hefajat men under the banner of Bangladesh Khelafat Andolon gathered at Nuria Madrasa in Kamrangairchar this morning.
They tried to bring out a procession around 11:45pm towards Motijheel intersection marking one year of the Hefajat mayhem today.
But law enforcers did not allow the activists to bring out the procession on the grounds that the Hefajat men did not have permission for the procession, said KM Fayzur Rahman, superintendent of police in Dhaka (Lalbagh zone).
Earlier in the day, the Hefajat men held a rally in the madrasa premises and demanded immediate implementation of their 13-point demands.
Alleging the ruling party and government for the mayhem, they also demanded punishment to those responsible for the incident.
On May 5 last year, Hefajat men, aided by Jamaat-e-Islami and BNP supporters, carried out vandalism in the capital, setting fire to hundreds of shops, police outposts and business establishments.
The government put the death figure from Hefajat’s rampage and the law enforcers’ operation to flush them out of Motijheel at 13.
On the other hand, Hefajat claimed that 2,000 of its leaders and activists were killed on that day.
Hefajat however could not provide names of those who they claimed were killed on that day.