The Bangladesh Awami League has condemned the unconstitutional interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, for allowing the Jamaat-e-Islami, an anti-liberation fundamentalist outfit that committed genocide in 1971 and terms the 2024 riots as the second independence, to hold a rally in the historic Suhrawardy Udyan on Saturday.
It marks a stark betrayal of the national conscience and constitutes a brazen act of undermining millions of peopleโdead and aliveโwho fought against the evil axis, the party said in a statement on Saturday.
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Over the last 11 months, the regime granted sweeping indemnity to the systematic cultural genocide of the Liberation War legacy as hundreds of murals and statues symbolising the war icons were desecrated and demolished.
The regime has also withdrawn the ban on the terrorist group Jamaat and released a convicted war criminal like al-Badr leader ATM Azhar, but freedom fighters are criminalised and assaulted with indiscriminate tagging of the Awami League, it said.
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โOn December 16, 1971, this Suhrawardy Udyan ground witnessed the first public surrender of Pakistan occupation army troops, leading to the birth of this country. On March 7, 1971, on this historic ground, the nation stood in unison and roared with the pledge to liberate this country from the clutches of the Pakistan Army and its top aide, Jamaat, at the call of the countryโs founding father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,โ the Awami League said.
Despite the outfitโs proven record of promoting terrorism and relentless assault on the Liberation War legacy, the Yunus regime embraced Jamaat and has been sponsoring the outfitโs plot to promote Pakistanization, a brazen act to deny justice to millions of victims of war crimes and glorify war criminals.
Freedom fighters and journalists alike say that Yunusโ father, Muslim League leader Dula Mia Saudagor, and his brothers acted as accomplices of the genocider Pakistani Army in 1971.
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โWe assert the effort by the regime to alter the history of the Liberation War aligns with a meticulous plot to accomplish the unfinished agenda of Pakistan that seeks to destroy the secular polity and tolerance and wipe out the history of genocide.
โDespite public surrender, five decades have elapsed, but the Pakistan Army has not offered an apology for the war crimes. Similarly, the Jamaat also seeks to wipe out the gruesome war crimes being guarded by the Yunus regime.
โIn collusion with this anti-Liberation Force, the regime has slapped an extrajudicial ban on the Awami League, a party that led the struggle for independence.
โBut people will unite and raise their voice against the ongoing state-sponsored onslaught to wipe out the legacy of the Liberation War.โ
The Awami League said the Yunus regime inflicted immense suffering on thousands of ordinary citizens who did not join the Jamaat rally on the street, as on-duty law enforcement officials, including police, ensured that the streets remained open exclusively for Jamaat supporters going to the rally, causing massive gridlock and bringing traffic to a standstill.
But the police did not ensure seamless passage for thousands of commuters who did not join the rally, an undue privilege for an outfit that publicly campaigned for the imposition of Sharia law and opposed secular polity and the women’s rights commission recommendations.
Earlier, the regime cancelled the scheduled holidays of railway staffers and introduced special service allowing public trains exclusively to be used by Jamaat supporters to arrive at the venue, another special privilege for the outfit that executed one of the worst crimes against humanity, including genocide, in 1971 to thwart the struggle for independence.
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