By Nazrul Islam

Stepping up pressure on the Khaleda Zia government in Bangladesh to declare the banned minority Ahmadiyya sect as non-Muslim, Islamist zealots in the country have announced a year-long agitational programme.

“The government has no right to ignore the people’s demand for declaring Ahmadiyyas non-Muslim by giving in to any pressure by any foreign nation or country. We are giving a final ultimatum to the government to take the responsibility for any consequence if our demand is not fulfilled by that time,” Nazmul Haq, the secretary general ofInternational Khatme Nabuwat Movement, Bangladesh (IKNMB), told reporters late on Thursday.

The IKNMB is a platform of Islamist fanatics that has pioneered the anti-Ahmadiyya movement and sentiment in Bangladesh.

Haq said that the agitation would commence from February 25 by laying siege to the Ahmadiyya community in the town of Bogra in north Bangladesh.

He further went on to say that “grand rallies” would be organised and ‘ “coffin processions” would be held at six divisional headquarters between January and September 2005.

Similar programmes would be carried out in the districts of Sylhet, Comilla, Mymensingh, Narsingdi, besides staging a march towards Parliament in Dhaka on the issue.

Thursday’s announcement came two days after a High Court bench stayed a government order that banned Ahmadiyya-related publications.

Radical Islamists also urged civilians to concentrate on their own works rather than extending support to the “non-Muslims“. (ANI)

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