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Anti-Ahmadiyya bigots to enforce 2-day hartal

Anti-Ahmadiyya organisation Khatme Nabuwat Andolan Bangladesh will enforce dawn to dusk hartal today and tomorrow in areas under five northern police stations in the city and on its outskirts in a bid to force the government declare the community non-Muslim.

I’ll lead the pickets in Abdullahpur at 6:00am, you’ll see Abdullahpur burning if the police attempted to stop us Noor Hossain Nurani

The anti-Ahmadiyya outfit then held a rally in front of Baitus Aman Mosque vowing to enforce the hartal.

As the government prepares to stop the zealots from taking to the streets today, the zealots warned of a ‘disaster’ if attempts were made to foil their protest.

“I’ll lead the pickets in Abdullahpur at 6:00am, you’ll see Abdullahpur burning if the police attempted to stop us,” Noor Hossain Nurani, the self-declared militant leader and chief of the anti-Ahmadiyya outfit, said in the rally.

The bigots announced their agitation programme for hartal and the Thursday’s lay siege of Zia International Airport after police foiled their attempt to attack an Ahmadiyya mosque in Ashkona on Friday.

The activists, split into several groups, will start to picket in the areas under Khilkhet, Uttara, Airport, Turag, and Tongi police stations since 6:00am and will continue to do so all day long, orgaisation leaders said.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) however said they would not let the fanatics hamper public life in anyway. “We’ll not let them take to the streets,” DMP Commissioner SM Mizanur Rahman told The Daily Star last night, adding that police have taken all necessary measures to prevent any ‘troubles’ the zealots might try to create.

“Who gave the DMP commissioner the power to take away our constitutional right to enforce hartal?” Nurani said, learning about the police move.

About 10 platoons of police and armed police battalions were deployed at Ashkona and Airport area to foil their yesterday’s agitation programme which was scheduled to take place near the north gate of Airport Haji Camp at 4:00pm.

The law enforcers kept the extremists confined to the Baitus Aman Mosque before the scheduled time and did not let them demonstrate.

Terming Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and her alliance government a betrayer, Nurani threatened to topple the government if their three-point demand was not met. “We would now go for attacks, one after another, if the Ahmadiyyas were not declared non-Muslim,” he said at the rally.

Source: www.thedailystar.net/2006/06/25/d60625011411.htm