B'desh bans Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir under anti-terrorism law

Dhaka: Bangladesh on Thursday banned the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir under anti-terrorism law following nationwide unrest, citing the threat posed by the fundamentalist party to public security.

A notification issued by the Public Security Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs on Thursday confirmed the ban on the Islamist party, a key ally of former prime minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

The Bangladesh government on Tuesday decided to ban the Jamaat-e-Islami following the deadly nationwide students’ protests over quotas in government jobs, accusing it of exploiting the movement that left at least 150 people dead.

The development comes after a meeting of the ruling Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League-led 14-party alliance passed a resolution earlier this week that Jamaat must be banned from politics.

The recent decision to ban Jamaat comes over 50 years after its initial prohibition in 1972 for "misusing religion for political purposes".