After a break of several months, activists of the banned outfit Hizb-ut Tahrir have put up posters on the walls at important points in the port city, protesting police action on the organisation’s protest rally in Mohammadpur, Dhaka on October 17.
A number of activists of the illegal outfit, divided into several groups, put up the posters in the dead of night yesterday, taking advantage of poor vigilance by the law enforcement agencies.
No one was reported arrested in this connection.
Chittagong Metropolitan Police’s Additional Commissioner (Crime and Operation) Banaz Kumar Majumdar acknowledged the incident, saying it was quite impossible to check all sorts of misdeeds as they were struggling with a poor number of forces against the large population in the city.
The commissioner said police were showing zero tolerance to the outfit, as part of which they had arrested two Tahrir activists along with many leaflets on Sunday evening.
The posters were seen on the walls of even media houses as well as on the compartments of Chittagong University shuttle trains.
The posters read the October 17 rally was protesting the controversial remarks by sacked minister Abdul Latif Siddique and the police dispersed it and severely beat up the organisation’s Information Affairs Adviser Nafis Salam before arresting him.
It also stated that such type of police action was against the religious sentiment of the Muslims. The outfit demanded immediate release of its leader.
In a poster, the outfit also reproached Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for releasing the former minister from blasphemy charges.
Currently, the banned Islamist organisation has been trying to reorganise in Chittagong city and the hill tracts areas to disseminate their controversial ideologies among the people in various ways secretly. They were even luring Rohingyas – with various
facilities – into joining Hizb-ut Tahrir to strengthen activities of the organisation.
Police sources said about 10,000 members of the organisation are working actively across the country and most of them are students.
Law enforcers have arrested 250 activists of the outfit in the district but could not extract any significant information.
On September 24, 2009, the Ministry of Home Affairs banned activities of Hizb-ut Tahrir as its objectives are contrary to the constitution of the country.