DHAKA: A Bangladesh court on Thursday banned the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party from contesting future polls in a landmark ruling, leaving the once-most powerful fundamentalist party with an uncertain future.
The verdict comes amid intensified demands from different left leaning and youth groups to ban the party as it was opposed to the very emergence of Bangladesh while its leaders and activists carried out massive atrocities siding with Pakistani troops in 1971.
A three-member bench comprising justices M Moazzam Husain, M Enayetur Rahim, and Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque passed the judgment accepting a writ petition that challenged the legality of JI’s registration as a political party.
In the petition, filed on January 25, 2009 by Bangladesh Tariqat Federation’s Secretary General Rezaul Haque Chandpuri and 24 others, it was stated that Jamaat-e-Islami was a religion-based political party and it did not believe in independence and sovereignty of Bangladesh.
So far, six top leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami, including its 91-year-old supremo Ghulam Azam, have been convicted for “crimes against humanity” during the 1971 liberation war since the trial of war crimes suspects began in 2010 three years ago.
