Members of 10 Islamist parties of the BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance were involved with the violence staged in the capital’s Motijheel and Paltan area under Hefazat-e-Islam’s banner on May 5, police have claimed.
Additional Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Hoque, also the acting IGP, Thursday made the claim at a press briefing at the police headquarters in the capital.
He said police investigations have found direct and indirect involvement of those organisations with the violence.
The briefing was arranged to clear the confusions surrounding the drive that police conducted on the night of May 5 to clear the Motijheel area of Hefazat activists; especially, the controversies that aroused after rights body Odhikar claimed in a report that 61 people had been killed in that police drive.
Police said the parties whose involvement they found were: Jamat-e-Islami; Jamiyat-e-Olama-e-Islam led by Mufti Wakkas; two factions of Nezam-e-Islam, one led by Abdul Latif Nejami and the other by Mufti Isharul Islam; two factions of Khilafat-e-Majlis, one led by Moulana Ishaq and the other by Moulana Ashraf; Khilafat Andolan, led by Moulana Ahmmad Ullah Ashraf; Islami Oikya Jote, led by late Fazlul Huq Amin’s son Abdul Hasnat Amini; Islamic Party; and Muslim League.
The Additional IGP said rumours about massive casualties in the drive at Shapla Chattar were being spread to “protect the interest of a particular group.”
“Those who are spreading rumours about casualties were not in Shapla Chattar on that night. They were sleeping at home; but are now cooking confusion with a malicious intent,” the AIG said, adding that police would take legal actions against those who were responsible.
Terming Odhikar’s report motivated, the acting IGP said: “None died in the hands of law enforcers at Shapla Chattar that night. After the operation, police found four dead bodies under the platform.
“One appears five times in the list of 61 people who was claimed to be dead. 18 people never existed. The list also included four names who were later found to be alive,” Shahidul Hoque said.
Odhikar have continuously refused to give to police the list on which its report was based. The rights body claimed that it had sent copies of the list to various local and international human rights organisations including the Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK).
However, ASK has claimed that it had not been given any such list.
On Wednesday, Detective Branch of Police pressed charges against Odhikar Secretary Adulur Rahman and Director SM Nasiruddin Elan for stoking people’s religious sentiments by publishing “a distorted report and manipulated images” on the May 5 police action.
