Gonojagoron Mancha holds rally in Ashulia
Cocktails blasted near venue
Gonojagoron Mancha organisers held a rally in the capital’s suburb Ashulia on Friday as part of their ongoing movement for death penalty to war criminals.
The demonstrators observed a one-minute silence in memory of all garments workers killed in fire accidents and those during the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh.
Hours before the rally that started at Gazir char area around 4:10pm, two cocktails went off at a place, some four kilometres off the venue.
SM Badrul Alam, a sub-inspector of Ashulia Police Station, said the cocktails were blasted around four kilometres off the rally venue.
No one was arrested in this regard.
Defying threats from radical Islamist group Hefazate Islam, Gonojagoron Mancha organisers announced to hold the rally in Ashulia while the Qaumi madrasa-based Islamist organisation also declared to hold a counter rally at the same venue.
The convener of Ashulia Thana Committee of Hefazate Islam, Mufti Samsul Haq, made the announcement at a press conference on Thursday evening.
The Shahbagh movement began on February 5, hours after Jamaat assistant secretary general Abdul Quader Mollah was sentenced to life in prison for rape, killing and genocide during country’s Liberation War in 1971.
Rejecting the verdict, Bloggers and Online Activist Network initiated the protest that soon turned into a mass movement.
It also spread to other parts of the country and eventually abroad later.