Students foil Awami League rally in Dhaka by chasing, assaulting party activists

Dhaka: Members of an influential Bangladeshi students' group that played a key role in toppling Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government prevented Awami League supporters from staging a planned rally here on Sunday, chasing and assaulting the party activists.

The development came a day after the interim government-led by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus on Saturday said it will not permit Hasina’s party to hold the planned rally.

Eyewitnesses said activists of Anti-Discrimination Student Movement and several other political groups assembled at Noor Hossain Chattar, or Zero Point, near the Awami League’s central office. The Awami league's rally was set to be the party's first such demonstration since the ouster of the Hasina government on August 5.

Despite a visible police presence, demonstrators reportedly assaulted at least seven people believed to be Awami League activists. Police attempted to calm the situation and detained some alleged supporters of the ousted regime, the eyewitnesses said.

Television footage showed members of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement rallying at the scene with chants against “fascist Hasina” and her party, demanding their trial for alleged mass killings.

The counter-protest at the Zero Point caused significant traffic disruptions in the area.

Chief Adviser Yunus' press secretary Shafiqul Alam in a Facebook post on Saturday said that the interim government won't tolerate any violence or any attempt to break the law and order situation in the country.

“The Awami League in its current form is a fascist party. There is no way this fascist party will be allowed to hold protests in Bangladesh,” he said.

Alam further cautioned that “anyone who would try to hold rally, gathering and processions by taking orders from the mass murderer and dictator Sheikh Hasina will face full force of the law enforcing agencies”.

The protest venue, Shaheed Noor Hossain Chattar, holds historical significance, as it was where Awami League youth leader Noor Hossain was killed on November 10, 1987 during a demonstration against the autocratic rule of the then military dictator General HM Ershad.