Dhaka, Aug 28 (PTI): Bangladesh police said it would lodge cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act against a prominent 1971 Liberation War veteran and 15 others hours after they were “rescued” from a mob during a public discussion.
“A process is underway to lodge cases against the 16 detainees. They are now under the custody of the Detective Branch (DB),” Bangladesh’s national daily Prothom Alo said quoting Dhaka Police’s Joint Commissioner Nasirul Islam.
Police said former minister and 1971 war veteran Abdul Latif Siddiqui, Dhaka University law professor Hafizur Rahman Curzon, journalist Manjurul Alam Panna, several freedom fighters, former bureaucrats and others were charged under the tough Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009.
The announcement came nearly 11 hours after Dhaka Police Deputy Commissioner Masud Alam said the group was taken into custody to “protect them from public unrest” and a decision on the “next course” would follow.
The 16 were targeted on Thursday when they gathered for a public discussion titled ‘Our Great Liberation War and the Constitution of Bangladesh’, organised by the newly formed veterans’ platform ‘Moncho 71’ at the Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) auditorium.
The mob called the organisers and participants of the event “accomplices of the fascist regime” of the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and alleged they rallied there to conspire against last year’s student-led movement, dubbed as the ‘July Uprising’.
The violent movement led by Students against Discrimination (SAD) toppled Hasina’s Awami League regime on August 5, 2024 when she left the country for neighbouring India aboard a Bangladesh Air Force plane. Three days later Professor Muhammad Yunus took over as the Chief Advisor of the interim government as the SAD nominee.
‘Moncho 71’ platform was launched earlier this month, announcing that it would uphold the “1971 Liberation War, Bangladesh’s founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the 1972 Constitution, the national flag and the national anthem”.
The group that came storming the auditorium identified themselves as the ‘July warriors’ as they tore down the banner of the discussion.
They allegedly assaulted some of the participants chanting slogans such as “Let the weapon of July roar again”, “Catch a league (Awami Leaguer), send him to jail” and “July warriors would not allow any such conspiracy to be hatched”.
“Freedom fighters of all political backgrounds were invited to the event. Soon after the programme started, more than 25 young men came to the scene and created chaos,” the 1971 veteran Golam Mostafa told media persons.
Siddique was a minister who was expelled from Hasina’s cabinet and the party for breaching discipline in 2014 while other participants too are not known for their affiliation with Awami League.
Most participants were detained by the mob at the scene for a long time though members and officials of Dhaka Reporters Union (DRU), which rented the venue to the platform for the meet, tried to guard or rescue them until police arrived at the scene and escorted them out.
Elderly lawyer and Liberation War veteran ZI Khan Panna, a key-organiser of Moncho 71, who had not joined the event due to health issues, in video message on social media called the mob “a group of miscreants”.
He said the assault “reflects what freedom of expression now exists in the country” under the interim government.
DRU later issued a statement saying “DRU is an open platform. Everyone has freedom of expression here. Threats or obstruction from any party are not acceptable here”.
The development came a day after secretary general of former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s BNP Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir alleged that efforts are underway to erase the 1971 Liberation War from people’s memories, asserting that those who “helped enemies” are now “speaking aloud.” “Many efforts are going on to make people forget 1971… those who helped the enemies at that time are now speaking loudly,” the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader said, referring to the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party, which had opposed the 1971 Independence from Pakistan.
“We fought in the (independence) war of 1971. We have not forgotten 1971. It is not possible to forget,” he added. AR OZ OZ
(This story is published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. No editing has been done in the headline or the body by ABP Live.)
