WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2013
SHAPLA CHATTAR CRACKDOWNDeath, missing claim unfounded
Hefajat fails to produce a single name
RASHIDUL HASAN, ARUN BIKASH DEY AND SHAHADAT HOSSAIN
Hefajat-e Islam is yet to produce any proof more than two weeks after it claimed that 3,000 Hefajat men had either died or went missing during the law enforcers' drive to flush them out of Shapla Chattar in the capital on May 5.
The Daily Star talked to several Hefajat leaders of Dhaka and Chittagong city units, but none of them could name any Hefajat man who was either missing or was forced to disappear.
"The task of preparing the lists of missing or dead Hefajat men is still going on," Ashraf Ali Nijampuri, spokesperson of Hefajat-e Islam, told The Daily Star on Sunday.
Abdul Latif Nejami, adviser of Hefajat's Dhaka city unit, told The Daily Star yesterday that the organisation was yet to finalise the list of missing Hefajat men.
Asked why it was taking so long to prepare the list, Nejami, who is also chairman of Islami Oikya Jote, a component of the BNP-led alliance, avoided answering the question but said the list would be made public once it was finalised.
Khalilur Rahman, secretary of Hefajat's Faridpur district unit, claimed that eight Hefajat men had been identified as missing. When he was asked to give their names, he said the list was kept with another Hefajat leader Maulana Asad.
When contacted over the phone yesterday afternoon, Asad said he would call back this correspondent after getting the list because he didn't have it.
Asked whether he could tell even a single name from that list, Asad said he was inside a shop and would call back later. However, he didn't contact this correspondent till last night.
On May 5 night, Rab and police personnel in a joint operation flushed out thousands of Hefajat men from Shapla Chattar. Five people died during the operation.
Earlier that day, six people were killed, as Hefajat men clashed with law enforcers in different parts of the capital. They began to gather at Shapla Chattar from the afternoon after their Dhaka siege programme to press home their 13-point demand.
The demands included exemplary punishment for what the Hefajat called atheist bloggers of the Shahbagh movement and scrapping of anti-Islamic women policy.
The next day, Hefajat and the BNP-led alliance claimed that around 2,000 to 3,000 Hefajat men had been killed and many others were forcibly disappeared during the crackdown.
In a statement, Hefajat also claimed that 20,000 of its activists and leaders were disabled in the drive.
Asking not to be named, a Hefajat leader admitted to The Daily Star that those who had been claimed to be missing or disappeared actually had gone into hiding or taken shelter in the houses of their friends or relatives in Dhaka or elsewhere after the drive.
"Those madrasa students started to return to their houses and madrasas, as the situation became normal," he said.
Following the drive, the top leaders of Hefajat asked their district-level Ameers to prepare lists of missing or dead madrasa students and teachers, and send the lists to the organisation's Hathazari headquarters.
Asked whether they had received any list from the district Ameers, Hefajat spokesperson Nijampuri said, "We are yet to receive any list. It may take a week or more to get the lists.
http://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/death-missing-claim-unfounded/
This is absolutely amazing:
This is absolutely amazing. Al-Jazeera uncovers a government plot to hide the true figures of those that were killed on May 6th -
Video suggests higher Bangladesh protest toll
Video footage obtained by Al Jazeera appears to contradict official death toll from May 6 violence in Dhaka.
Last Modified: 14 May 2013 16:47
Al Jazeera has obtained video footage suggesting that the Bangladesh government has been providing inaccurate death tolls from recent violence.
According to official figures, 11 people had died during fighting between police and protesters from Hifazat-e-Islam, an Islamic group, on May 6, a day protesters refer to as the "Siege of Dhaka".
Human Rights Watch, a US-based rights group, said that the exact number of deaths resulting from the protests are "unclear"."Independent news sources put the figure at approximately 50 dead, with others succumbing to injuries later," HRW said in a statement on Saturday.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Bangladesh's Foreign Minister Dipu Moni downplayed reports of inaccuracy in government figures.
"There can always be an inquiry, there can always be an investigation," said Moni.
"The government or most of the people in the country doesn't even think that there was any controversy with the matter," she added.
Abdul Jalil, a deaf and mute grave digger at Dhaka's state-run cemetery, communicated that he buried 14 bodies of bearded men with gunshot wounds after the protest, all at night.
The rights group wants an independent inquiry to find out what happened once and for all.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/05/2013514143842666992.html
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