3 October 2018, Wed, 8:42

Police arrests people from obituary in Sirajganj; files false case against Jamaat leaders; Secretary General condemns

Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s Secretary General Dr. Shafiqur Rahman has issued the following statement on 3rd October 2018 protesting and condemning the police’s effort to arrest Sirajganj district’s Ullapara Upazila unit Jamaat’s Secretary Alauddin Al-Azad from the obituary program of late Joinal Talukdar, held in Koira Chorpara village under Koira union of the district and the subsequent vandalism of the policemen in his house.

“The obituary program of late Joinal Talukdar was arranged in his house on 1st October noon. Around 5-7 thousand of people were present in the program. During the meal, 10/12 plain clothed men came up in the scene and made an effort to arrest Ullapara Upazila unit Jamaat’s Secretary Alauddin Al-Azad. Although there is a directive from the High Court not to arrest anyone in plain clothes without any arrest warrant. Resultantly, the general masses became aggrieved about those unidentified men and started bargaining. It should be added here that the late Joinal Talukdar is the paternal uncle of Mr. Alauddin Al-Azad. This is why, he attended this obituary. Earlier, police had arrested local Jamaat leader Saidur Rahman from a marriage ceremony and killed him later on. Having the assumption of repetition of such bad incident, the locals became excited. On that very night, police carried out a raid and vandalized the houses of late Joinal Talukdar and Alauddin Al-Azad recklessly. They also arrested 5 men from the spots.

Centering the incidents, police filed a case mentioning 73 people and keeping another 150 anonymous. It must be added that police included the names of Jamaat’s candidate in the local constituency and party’s Assistant Secretary General Maulana Rafiqul Islam Khan and Jamaat’s candidate in the neighboring constituency of Belkuchi Upazila Ali Alam, Ullapara Upazila council’s vice-chairman Professor Shahjahan Ali, Belkuchi Upazila’s Vice-Chairman Ariful Islam Sohel and Belkuchi-Bera UP chairman Mahbubur Rashid Shamim as the accused of this case. But they do not have minimum nexus with this incident. Police has made them accused just to harass them politically. Since the incident, police have been carrying raid in the area.

It is really unfortunate that people are being arrested from the obituary prayer program. I am urging the concerned authorities to conduct a judicial investigation into the incident. Besides, I am calling upon them to stop police raid, withdraw the false case and also to release all the detainees immediately.”