Detained leader unveils Bangladesh plot

Dhaka: A detained top leader of radical Hefazat-e-Islam has told a court that the right-wing opposition alliance had blueprinted an “oust government” plot patronising the radical group’s violent May 5 “Dhaka siege” programme, officials and reports said today.

Mainstream Bangladeshi newspapers carried the report on the “plot” a day after Hefazat’s detained second man Junaid Babunagari gave a confessional statement before a magistrate after two weeks of police interrogations.

The reports quoting unidentified officials familiar with the statement said Babunagari tended to disassociate himself from the plot but said other leaders of the radical group were sponsored by the BNP and Jamaat to stage violent campaigns on May 5 and 6.

“Those Hefazat leaders told me that our movement is not only to press for our 13-point demand only. Now this will be a movement to oust the government as we have an understanding with the 18-party leaders,” the reports quoted Babunagari as telling the magistrate.

He said the 18-party promised to provide all sorts of assistance — money, food and water as the Hefazat decided to stay back in the capital as they enforced its Dhaka siege blocking the capital’s entry points from rest of the country on May 5.

On the same day they staged a grand rally at the heart of the city with police permission demanding implementation of their 13-point demand which mainly calls for enactment of a blasphemy law for tougher punishment for humiliating Islam and Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

But the newly floated radical group, mainly comprising teachers and students of unregistered “Kawmi” madrasahs or Islamic religious schools, later preferred to stay back defying a government warning asking them to leave the capital immediately after their rally sparking the violence.

Officials said 21 people were killed while unofficial figures put the toll as high as 28 during the May5/6 violence in the capital and the outskirts of Dhaka and south-eastern port city of Chittagong, the stronghold of Hefazat.

During their grand rally at the Motijheel Shapla Chattar, the Islamists burnt down stalls of religious books including Holy Quran at the nearby Baitul Mokarram National Mosque complex alongside setting ablaze 30 buses and 100 shops and chopping off scores of trees with saws to create barricades on the road.

The Purana Paltan area of the city appeared to be set on fire while smokes were emitting even on the next day from the damaged buildings of several government installations including House Building Finance Corporation, some banks and the Communist Party office there.

Plainclothesmen on May 6 arrested 62-year old Babunagari from the capital hours after sending the group’s elderly top leader Allama Ahmed Shafi to his abode at Hathazari area at the outskirts of Chittagong.

None of the two leaders were present at the scene when the mayhem was underway at the Purana Paltan ad Motijheel areas.