ID :
28509
Wed, 11/05/2008 - 09:15
Auther :
Shortlink :
http://m.oananews.org//node/28509
The shortlink copeid
Islamic Jamaat-e-Islami party gets poll pass in B'desh
Anisur Rahman
Dhaka, Nov 4 (PTI) Hardliner Jamaat-e-Islami, a crucial ally of former prime minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (B.N.P.), is all set to get the mandatory registration after Election Commission disposed off petitions from citizen groups seeking to disqualify it for the polls.
An E.C. spokesman Tuesday told PTI that they have
decided to register the party reviewing the objections filed
by the citizen groups including the Sector Commanders Forum, a
grouping of Liberation War veterans, who demanded the party be
debarred from polls for siding with the Pakistani troops in
1971.
No official explanations were issued by the commission
but the spokesman said the decision came after the unilateral
hearing of the complaints on Saturday when no representative
of the party was present on a plea of "not wanting an
unpleasant situation to occur".
Jamaat, however, had sent a written statement to the
commission in reply to the allegations.
Jamaat and several other religion-based parties
opposed Bangladesh's 1971 independence backed by India while
Al-Badr and Razakar militia forces, mostly manned by their
men, acted as the auxiliary forces of the Pakistani army
during the Liberation War.
The so-called elite Al-Badr forces, led by current
Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami and secretary general Ali
Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, is widely believed to have killed
frontline intellectuals, after brutal torture, abducting them
from their homes visibly in an effort to cripple the emerging
nation intellectually just two days ahead of their defeat on
December 16 in 1971.
Demands for the trial of the war criminals resurfaced
in the past two years after Mujahid commented that the
"anti-liberation forces never existed" as he denied his
party's role in 1971 while subsequent comments by other party
leaders calling the Liberation War a "civil war" intensified
the public outrage.
Chief Adviser of the interim government Fakhruddin
Ahmed earlier said his caretaker administration would welcome
legal moves by aggrieved persons for trial of the 1971 war
criminals as major parties demanded the trial and
disqualification for polls.
"In principle, I agree with the demand but we have to
see how it could be done," Chief Election Commissioner A.T.M.
Shamsul Huda earlier said amid demands from political parties
to disqualify the "Anti-Liberation elements" for the polls.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during his
Bangladesh visit recently said the United Nations could take a
move for the investigations and trial of war crimes if an
official request was made.
Officially three million people lost their lives and
thousands of women were tortured during the Liberation war
that eventually saw the emergence of independent Bangladesh.
After the independence J.I. and other religion-based
parties were constitutionally banned in Bangladesh till 1976
but they were allowed to resume activities after the August
15, 1975 change, when Bangladesh's founder Bangabandhu Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman was killed along with most of his family
members. PTI AR
Dhaka, Nov 4 (PTI) Hardliner Jamaat-e-Islami, a crucial ally of former prime minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (B.N.P.), is all set to get the mandatory registration after Election Commission disposed off petitions from citizen groups seeking to disqualify it for the polls.
An E.C. spokesman Tuesday told PTI that they have
decided to register the party reviewing the objections filed
by the citizen groups including the Sector Commanders Forum, a
grouping of Liberation War veterans, who demanded the party be
debarred from polls for siding with the Pakistani troops in
1971.
No official explanations were issued by the commission
but the spokesman said the decision came after the unilateral
hearing of the complaints on Saturday when no representative
of the party was present on a plea of "not wanting an
unpleasant situation to occur".
Jamaat, however, had sent a written statement to the
commission in reply to the allegations.
Jamaat and several other religion-based parties
opposed Bangladesh's 1971 independence backed by India while
Al-Badr and Razakar militia forces, mostly manned by their
men, acted as the auxiliary forces of the Pakistani army
during the Liberation War.
The so-called elite Al-Badr forces, led by current
Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami and secretary general Ali
Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, is widely believed to have killed
frontline intellectuals, after brutal torture, abducting them
from their homes visibly in an effort to cripple the emerging
nation intellectually just two days ahead of their defeat on
December 16 in 1971.
Demands for the trial of the war criminals resurfaced
in the past two years after Mujahid commented that the
"anti-liberation forces never existed" as he denied his
party's role in 1971 while subsequent comments by other party
leaders calling the Liberation War a "civil war" intensified
the public outrage.
Chief Adviser of the interim government Fakhruddin
Ahmed earlier said his caretaker administration would welcome
legal moves by aggrieved persons for trial of the 1971 war
criminals as major parties demanded the trial and
disqualification for polls.
"In principle, I agree with the demand but we have to
see how it could be done," Chief Election Commissioner A.T.M.
Shamsul Huda earlier said amid demands from political parties
to disqualify the "Anti-Liberation elements" for the polls.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during his
Bangladesh visit recently said the United Nations could take a
move for the investigations and trial of war crimes if an
official request was made.
Officially three million people lost their lives and
thousands of women were tortured during the Liberation war
that eventually saw the emergence of independent Bangladesh.
After the independence J.I. and other religion-based
parties were constitutionally banned in Bangladesh till 1976
but they were allowed to resume activities after the August
15, 1975 change, when Bangladesh's founder Bangabandhu Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman was killed along with most of his family
members. PTI AR
