Notification banning Jamaat-Shibir anytime: Home Minister

The process to ban Jamaat-Shibir is underway and the notification in this regard can be issued anytime, said Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan. 

He came up with the remark while talking to reporters in his Secretariat office in Dhaka on Wednesday evening.

Asked whether there will be new unrest in the country due to the banning of Jamaat-Shibir, the home minister said that Jamaat-Shibir has created this situation.

"We have come to know that Jamaat, BNP and other militant organizations were involved in the violence centering the student movement," said the minister.

Questioned whether Jamaat-Shibir will be banned by tonight, the minister said, “A lot of things can happen, but still I would say it is in process. You will be notified when it happens.”

Law Minister Anisul Huq on Tuesday said that the government, though an executive order, is set to ban Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir, in the country by Wednesday.

Earlier on Monday, the Awami League-led 14-party alliance unanimously recommended banning Jamaat-Shibir after a meeting at the Gonobhaban in the capital.

Ban under anti-terror law

The government is going to ban the Jamaat-e-Islami, which opposed Bangladesh’s independence in the 1971 Liberation, and its student front Islami Chhatra Shibir under the Anti Terrorism Act, the home minister told reporters after Wednesday‍‍`s meeting.

He mentioned section 18 of the anti-terror law for the banning.

The home minister cited Jamaat’s “terrorism in the past, the demand to ban it by the 14-Party Alliance and the civil society, and the party’s link to violence during recent student protests for government job quota reforms” as the reasons behind the decision.

Looking back

The Election Commission through a gazette issued on October 29, 2018 cancelled the registration of Jamaat as a political party, which had opposed Bangladesh’s independence during the Liberation War of 1971.

According to the gazette, Jamaat’s registration was cancelled in line with the Sub Clause 4 of Article 90H of the Representation of the People Order (RPO) 1972, following a 2013 High Court order that declared the party’s registration illegal and cancelled.

On November 19 last year, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court dismissed a leave-to-appeal filed by Jamaat-e-Islami challenging a High Court verdict, which declared the party‍‍`s registration with the Election Commission as illegal.