Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir on Thursday dropped a hint about a ban on hartal following a demand from a senior minister as the BNP-led opposition is preparing for another spell of shutdowns from the next week.
Issuing a statement on urgent public interest matter (rule 300 of the Rules of Procedure), the home minister said the government would enact a law with a provision to set up an insurance-type fund for hartal victims and realize compensation from the hartal enforcers.
The Rule of Procedure of parliament does not allow any lawmaker to raise any question or debate on the minister’s statement on the rule 300.
The minister issued the statement just before the end of Thursday’s sitting. Prior to his statement, Suranjit Sengupta took the floor in an unscheduled discussion to enact the private member bill seeking a ban on hartal.
The minister without portfolio said the House should decide about hartal before the Supreme Court intervenes in the matter.
Jatiya Party MP Mujibul Haque (Kishoreganj) in 2010 submitted a bill styled “Public Interest” for a ban on hartal given the widespread misuse of this once-effect non-violent instrument of political movement.
Muhihuddin Alamgir in his 20-minute statement referred to the violent and destructive activities of the BNP-Jamaat activists during the just-concluded 60-hour hartal.
He said those who call hartal and “criminals enforcing illegal hartal” could not mobilize people in favour of the “so-called demand”.
Even, he said, the BNP-Jamaat leaders stay back at homes while the criminals unleash violence to enforce hartals.
The minister said the home ministry was thinking of creating an insurance-type fund to compensate the hartal victims.
Mujibul Haque in his private member bill proposed collecting compensation from the leadership of the parties sponsoring hartals.
In his unscheduled speech, Suranjit Sengupta said a high court bench issued a suo moto rule banning hartal, but the Supreme Court set it aside without giving any decision on it. The high court observation stipulated that the criminal activities during hartals could be taken as “cognizable offence”.
He referred to the courts in Kerala and Maharastra in India, Turkey and Canada who punish hartal enforcers.
“Time has come to rethink about it. We should enact the private member bill (of Mujibul Haque),” he said.
He said the Supreme Court would not sit idle on hartal issue unless parliament decide about it.
“We have to decide about it before the Supreme Court intervenes,” he said.
He said the hartals should be banned for constitutionality and continuation of the ongoing democratic process.
The minister’s statement being over Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury who was chairing the sitting adjourned the sitting until November 10.