The Awami League, activities of which are banned for July atrocities, made a poor show with stray activities – including cutting cake, bringing out flash processions and offering prayers at some places – to mark its 77th founding anniversary on Tuesday as security personnel, and BNP and opposition parties dominated the scene.
Although videos of the party programmes were shared on the Bangladesh Awami League verified Facebook page and went viral on social media, many of them proved fake.
At least 285 AL leaders and activists were arrested from 12:01 am to 5:00pm on Tuesday in raids in different places across the country, including the Dhaka city, according to the Police Headquarters.
The government has, meanwhile, deployed the members of the armed forces with magistracy power to avert any disruptions in law and order centering on the AL founding anniversary.
At about 8:30pm, two unidentified individuals on motorcycle exploded a crude bomb at the Technical crossing and immediately fled the scene, said Darussalam police station officer-in-charge Md Dulal Hossain, adding that the police were working to identify the individuals.
Addressing at a briefing at Hosne Dalan in Dhaka on Tuesday, Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner Mosleh Uddin Ahmed said that the Awami League, activities of which were now banned for committing crimes during the mass uprising in 2024, wanted to deteriorate law and order through sabotage marking the party’s founding anniversary, but law enforcers foiled their plan.
Meanwhile, ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party, opposition Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and National Citizen Party held separate protest rallies in different places on the day, pressing for trials of the AL and its leaders and activists involved in the July atrocities that killed around 1,400 people.
BNP’s student wing Jatiyatabadi Chatradal held a protest rally and brought out a procession on the Dhaka University campus against possible the AL activities, New Age correspondent at the Dhaka University reported.
The 11-party alliance, led by Jamaat, on Tuesday held a rally in the capital’s Bijoynagar area demanding trial and justice for all incidents of enforced disappearances, murders and mass killings committed by the Awami League during its 15-year regime.
Addressing the rally as chief guest, Jamaat ameer Shafiqur Rahman alleged that the BNP government was showing less interest in ensuring the trial of AL’s crimes after taking over the office despite promise made in past years.
No official programme was announced to mark the AL founding anniversary while the AL leaders and activists did not even gather at Dhanmondi-32, the now-damaged residence of the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, AL president and ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s political office at Dhanmondi and AL party headquarters at Gulistan in the city.
In Dhaka city, AL’s volunteer wing Bangladesh Awami Swechhasebak League Gulshan Thana unit brought out a flash procession in the early morning demanding the release of all political prisoners.
Of the limited scale observance in some places, doa mahfil, taking oath and offering prayers held in Barishal city, AL’s banned student organisation Bangladesh Chhatra League Govt Rajednda College unit cut cake midnight past Monday on the college campus, AL and its associate bodies brought out a flash procession at Signboard area in Narayanganj and BCL Gopalganj district unit also cut cake and brought out a flash procession.
The Awami Muslim League was established on June 23, 1949 at Rose Garden in the capital’s old town and the party later emerged as the Awami League.
The party played significant roles in organising the War of Independence and the anti-autocracy movement in the’90s.
The Election Commission suspended the registration of the party on May 12, a day after the interim government issued a gazette notification, banning all activities of the party and its affiliated, associate and like-minded organisations until the completion of the trials of its leaders and activists on charge of atrocities during the student-led uprising that brought an end to over the 15-year rule of the party on August 5, 2024.
AL president and the then prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India on the day and she has been sheltered there since then.
Most of the AL senior leaders are now either in jail or in hiding to avoid arrests.
