AL, allies urge people to reject hartal

Leaders of the Awami League-led 14-party alliance yesterday urged people to reject today's hartal of eight Islamist parties like the last hartal of Jamaat.
Speaking at a protest rally, they said Jamaat-e-Islami played a strong role behind the mayhem unleashed by the Islamist parties on Friday across the country to free the war criminals from jail and hamper the operations of the war crimes tribunals.
Ramna thana unit of the alliance organised the rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital as part of the alliance's countrywide rallies protesting Friday's violence.
Accusing Mahmudur Rahman, acting editor of Bangla daily Amar Desh, of instigating the violence, State Minister for Law Qamrul Islam said Mahmudur and his newspaper through some reports incited the Jamaat-Shibir activists to unleash the mayhem.
He said the newspaper ran reports against blogger Ahmed Rajib Haidar claiming that he [Rajib] had posted some anti-Islamic write-ups in several blogs in August-September last year.
Why the newspaper authorities ran the reports after Rajib's death if the posts were true, he questioned.
He demanded arrest of Mahmudur Rahman in connection with Friday's violence.
Citing the Ramu mayhem in Cox's Bazar, Industries Minister Dilip Barua said extremists at that time had launched a propaganda campaign on Facebook and destroyed pieces of Buddhist heritage.
And this time around, a similar conspiracy is afoot in the cyber world to cause mayhem again in the country, he added.
The minister urged people to reject today's hartal.
Information Minister Hasanul Haque Inu said the government has taken a strong position against any anti-Islamic propaganda. It has blocked YouTube on allegations of hosting an anti-Islamic film.
As per the related rules, he said, an electronic or print media cannot run a report of “bad taste.” But several media did it by violating journalistic ethics.
AL presidium member Mohammad Nasim said by conducting the latest violence Jamaat has proved that it has not changed its 1971 character.
The youths at Shahbagh have raised the demand of mass people, he noted.
Later, a procession was brought out rejecting today's hartal and demanding punishment to persons involved in Friday's violence.
Thousands of youths started a non-stop demonstration in the capital's Shahbagh on February 5, hours after the International Crimes Tribunal-2 awarded life sentence to Jamaat Assistant Secretary General Abdul Quader Mollah for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War.
On February 15, Rajib, an activist of the Shahbagh movement, was found dead on the road near his residence at Palash Nagar in the capital's Pallabi.