Despite promising to prepare a list of the dead and missing men, Hefajat leaders were still dragging their feet when The Daily Star spoke to them yesterday.
Earlier they had said thousands of Hefajat activists were bumped off by police and Rapid Action Battalion
soldiers while they drove out of the capital Hefajat men holding the "peaceful" rally. It had claimed that the law enforcers switched off the street lights and committed genocide.The gathering had tuned violent and Hefajat men clashed with law enforcers even before Rab and police started to flush them out in the middle of night, witnesses said.
Taking their cue from Hefajat, the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami
...
The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka
The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an
independentbranch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
also put out the corpse count at Shapla Chattar at 3,000 and claimed that many bodies of the victims of the "genocide" had been trucked away or stuffed into the manholes, a claim dismissed by police and the government.
Commissioner Benazir Ahmed of Dhaka Metropolitan Police on May 8 said 11 people, including a policeman and three pedestrians, died in the violence centring Hefajat's Dhaka siege programme and law enforcers' action on Hefajat men.
The Daily Star found 18 men dead in the unrest centring Shapla Chattar.
About the Hefajat claim regarding casualties, The Daily Star yesterday talked to seven Hefajat leaders, including its spokesperson Ashraf Ali, central office secretary Moulana Forkan, adviser of Hefajat's Dhaka city unit Abdul Latif Nejami, an assistant of Junaid Babunagari, secretary general of Hefajat and an assistant of Nur Hosain Karimi, convenor of Hefajat's Dhaka city unit.
They all expressed ignorance about a "big list" of dead or missing Hefajat men. They even were unable to identify 70 missing activists, reported by Bangla daily Prothom Alo yesterday.
Abdul Latif Nejami, Hefajat's adviser and chief of Islami Oikya Jote
... a political party in Bangladesh. In the 2001 elections the party won 2 out of 300 elected members in an alliance with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. It has a focus on building an islamic state, and has used the madrassas to gain support...
, indirectly admitted exaggeration in their original claim about the Shapla Chattar casualties. "Primarily it was presumed that many Hefajat men went missing as we could not find them immediately after the incident. They could have taken shelter in different places and later returned to their bases."
On May 6, Hefajat leaders pledged to form enquiry committees in various districts led by their local chiefs to find out people who disappeared from Shapla Chattar.
"We are yet to receive report from any of the district leaders," said Hefajat spokesperson Ashraf Ali on Tuesday.
Ali had no explanation for the long delay in preparing a list of the missing. He asked The Daily Star to talk to his office secretary Moulana Forkan.
Forkan said he was not looking into the matter and suggested talking to another Hefajat leader. That Hefajat leader kept his phone off.
Asked whether the claim of 2,500 Hefajat men being killed was false as was termed by the government, Ashraf said, "I am busy. Talk to our other leaders."
Hefajat leader and international affairs secretary of Bangladesh Khelafat Andolon Abul Kasim Kasimi claimed that he had collected some names who were "martyred" on May 5. But he could not give The Daily Star the names of the victims.
Following the May 5 mayhem, in which Hefajat and Jamaat-Shibir men resorted to wide-spread violence, affected businessmen and the police filed 36 cases against Hefajat leaders. But so far police made no headway in these cases.
Home ministry officials admitted to The Daily Star that police were not pursuing the cases. "Since the incident, police have remained busy with handling political activities and have temporarily shelved the cases against Hefajat," said a high official.