Police action and civil society resistance kept at bay religious fanatics who threatened to capture the Ahmadiyya headquarters in Bakshibazar yesterday to the relief of Dhaka residents reeling from deadly grenade attacks on an Awami League rally. The fanatics under the banner of Aamra Dhakabashi failed to gather at any point in the capital, but threatened to take the Ahmadiyya base soon after the release of their four top leaders arrested overnight. A Dhaka court sent Aamra Dhakabashi President Shamsul Huq, Secretary General Jamal Nasser Chowdhury and key leaders Abdul Kader and Sharafat Ali to jail yesterday. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, Bangladesh, hailed the government and civil society steps, saying the government role proved it could resist fundamentalists if it wanted.
Fourteen platoons of police were deployed at 12 points in and around the Ahmadiyya Complex in the morning to stop Aamra Dhakabashi activists who threatened to say their Friday prayers at the mosque in the sect's headquarters 'at any cost'. The fanatics, after the Juma prayers, tried to gather at Azad Field, but police chased them away. Failing to organise its people, Aamra Dhakabashi formally 'postponed' their capture bid in the afternoon.
Thanking the civil society leaders for their role, Ahmadiyya Nayebe Amir Meer Mobashwer Ali said, "The secular people of Bangladesh possess a strong power and the dream that attended Bangladesh's birth will come true if they join hands to this end." The SAPUFC, Awami League and 11-party leaders and activists earlier gathered at the Central Shaheed Minar and held a rally with SAPUFC President Prof Kabir Chowdhury in the chair. "We will soon form a platform of pro-Liberation, secular, non-communal and progressive people to resist fundamentalist threats anywhere in Bangladesh," Prof Chowdhury said. "Only an united people can stop the extremist and fundamentalist forces who are getting stronger across the country alarmingly." |