Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh has called a dawn-to-dusk hartal for Sunday minutes after the Hefazat-e-Islam called off its daylong shutdown on the day.
The opposition ally declared its decision on Thursday protesting the International Crimes Tribunal’s death verdict of its assistant secretary general, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, for war crimes during 1971.
A statement issued by the party said the ruling government had orchestrated a “politically-motivated” trial to reach a verdict “ignoring all international laws and principles.”
Roughly half-an-hour before the statement was issued, a leader of the Dhaka unit of Hefazat-e-Islam, Muhammad Fakhrul Islam, told the Dhaka Tribune the Chittagong-based Islamist platform has withdrawn its pre-scheduled countrywide shutdown programme considering country’s current political situation.
Also the president of Banlgadesh Khelafat Jubo Andolon, Fakhrul said: “Our supreme leader Allama Shah Ahmed Shafi made the announcement of withdrawing our pre-scheduled programme at a press briefing at Darul Ulum Hathazari Madrasa on Thursday afternoon.”
Hefazat called for Sunday’s shutdown on May 7 protesting the crackdown of law enforcers on its sit-in demonstration at Motijheel’s Shapla Chattar in Dhaka in the early hours of the day.