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Ahmadiyaa Complex Siege Threat
AL, leftists agree to counter bigots

Main opposition Awami League (AL) and three left-leaning parties yesterday threw their weight behind the civil society its bid to resist a move by religious bigots to capture Ahmadiyya base at Bakhsibazar in the capital on August 27.

The Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) will join the resistance programme while the AL and the Workers’ Party of Bangladesh have agreed in principle to support the move.

“We discussed a plan today (Tuesday) to resist the fanatics from getting near the Ahmadiyya headquarters,” said Prof Kabir Chowdhury, president of the South Asian People Union against Fundamentalism and Communalism (SAPUFC) that called for the resistance programme.

“I’ve sent letters to the AL and pro-Liberation political parties and talked with AL President Sheikh Hasina, CPB President Manzurul Ahsan Khan, JSD President Hasnaul Haq Inu and Workers Party President Rashed Khan Menon who are willing to back our resistance programme.

“I’ve wrote to 80 pro-Liberation political parties and their student fronts, socio-cultural organisations and professional bodies and eminent citizens asking them to join the bandwagon,” said Prof Chowdhury, emerging from a meeting yesterday.

Justice KM Sobhan, Prof Muntassir Mamoon, Prof Ajay Roy, Hashem Khan, Abul Bark Alvee, Kajal Debnath, Kazi Mukul and Nazmul Haque Prodhan took part in the meeting, chaired by Prof Chowdhury.

AL General Secretary Abdul Jalil and Menon told The Daily Star their parties will support the move.

Manzurul Ahsan, meanwhile, confirmed his party’s active participation in the move. “We will even go to Bakshibazar to stop the fanatics from capturing the Ahmadiyya Complex.”

Inu echoed him and said, “We’ll not allow the fundamentalists to capture the places of worship of other sects as we believe in a secular Bangladesh.”

Religious fanatics under the banner of ‘Aamra Dhakabashi’ renewed Sunday their threat to lay siege to the Ahmadiyya Complex at Bakshibazar on August 27 to compel the government to declare the Ahmadiyyas non-Muslim.

The fanatics on Friday attacked the complex and clashed with police from a ‘burial shroud’ procession.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, Bangladesh will hold a press conference today to seek government intervention.