11-member committee formed
Eminent citizens on Saturday called upon all pro-liberation to build up a strong resistance against sectarian forces and religious extremists as they formed an 11-member national council of Bangladesh Rukhe Darao, a platform to combat communalism, at its national convention on Saturday.
Speakers at the convention in the capital also urged progressive activists to go from door to door to make people aware of the threat of communalism and also called for a national unity of pro-liberation forces to combat evil forces like Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir which they said should be banned under the existing laws of the land.
The convention at the Suhrawardy Udyan on the day also demanded a ban on the politics of Jamaat-Shibir, execution of the verdicts of International Crimes Tribunals and resistance against the plots to Talibanise the country.
Organisers said Bangladesh Rukhe Darao was committed to combating the communal and extremist forces.
The convention made professor emeritus Anisuzzman the president of Bangladesh Rukhe Darao and rights activist Sulatan Kamal its convener.
Other members of the forum are writer Syed Shamsul Haque, cultural activists Kamal Lohani and Ramendu Majumder, former caretaker government adviser Akbar Ali Khan, Liberation War Museum trustee members Sarwar Ali and Ziauddin Tarik Ali, journalist Abed Khan, economist MM Akash and lawyer Rana Dasgupta.
Sarwar Ali announced the committee at the convention.
‘Every citizen has a role to play in resisting communal force,’ Anisuzzman said in written statement.
He said that everyone, including Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Ahmadiyya and Shias, were being made the targets of fascist attacks by the sectarian forces. No one is being spared.
Planning minister AK Khandker said that it is should be ensured that anti-liberation forces could not raise their heads further in the society. ‘One of the objectives of independent Bangladesh was to make it a secular country but, like many other aspirations, it is yet to be fulfilled,’ said AK Khandker, also chairman of the Sector Commanders Forum.
‘Political forces had betrayed the spirit of the Liberation War,’ said Sultana Kamal, while chairing the convention. She urged countrymen to raise their voice strongly for restoring the spirit of the Liberation War and banning Jamaat-Shibir.
Syed Shamsul Haque said religion-based politics should be banned immediately as it was the root of all evil.
Kamal Lohani said that unity of the people was a must for building up resistance against sectarian and extremist forces.
Educationist Ajoy Roy called upon progressive activists to reach out to the villages with the appeal for resistance against the religious extremists.
Cultural activist Nasiruddin Yousuf called for a social boycott of war criminals.
Along with others, MM Akash, Rana Dasgupta, Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee president Golam Rabbani, Mahila Parishad leader Ayesha Khanam, garment workers’ leader Nazma Akhter and Ganajagaran Mancha leader Imran H Sarkar, among others, spoke at the programme.
-With New Age input
