Police use water cannons and teargas to disperse the Gonojagoron Mancha activists agitating at Shahbagh yesterday against the Supreme Court verdict on Sayedee. The protesters said imprisonment till death is not enough for the Jamaat leader's war crimes and he deserves capital punishment. Photo: Palash Khan/ Rashed Shumon As the Gonojagoron Mancha activists returned to Shahbagh intersection after m
onths, four of them were injured in police action using water cannons and teargas yesterday. Two factions of the platform had taken their position opposite the National Museum demanding death sentence to Delwar Hossain Sayedee around 8:00am, witnesses said. After the Supreme Court sentenced Sayedee to imprisonment until death around 10:00am, the faction led by Imran H Sarkar brought out a procession from Shahbagh and was stopped by police near Doyel Chattar. Back to Shahbagh, pro-Imran protesters staged a sit-in at the intersection for about half an hour till the police attack around 11:40am. The law enforcers injured the four, including Imran. Around noon, activists of Shahbagh Andolon, another platform of war crimes trial campaigners, were also harassed by police as they were gathering near the intersection. The Imran-led faction announced a protest rally to be held at Shahbagh at 4:00pm today and tomorrow. Shahbagh was reverberated with slogans chanted by Gonojagoron Mancha activists on Tuesday evening. It was their first gathering in months on the venue -- the centre of never-seen-before Shahbagh Andolon beginning February last year. “It is a biased verdict aimed at establishing the politics of Jamaat-e-Islami and Shibir,” Imran told reporters. “The verdict is an outcome of the government's compromise with Jamaat.” Imran, one of the injured, was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. He alleged that the government split the platform in two to divide the youths against such biased verdicts. An elderly man protesting with a noose in his hand. Photo: Palash Khan/ Rashed Shumon In an interview with BBC Bangla, Shibli Noman, superintendent of Ramna zone police, said police dispersed the Mancha activists considering the location of two hospitals there. "We have heard screams of patients as ambulances stood stuck in traffic due to the rallies," he said. The Kamal Pasha-led faction too faced police barricade when its activists tried to stage a sit-in at the Shahbagh intersection. "We reject the verdict as it does not reflect the aspirations of pro-Liberation War people," said Kamal. He, however, said he was unaware of the “government's compromising” stance with Jamaat. Advertisement
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