Forty-two eminent citizens from different professions yesterday filed an application with the Supreme Court, seeking permission to place before it their arguments against Jamaat-e-Islami.
They submitted the application to the Appellate Division of the SC through senior lawyer Tanya Amir, requesting they be made an added party to a pending contempt of court petition against Jamaat.
For all latest news, follow The My News’s Google News channel. In the application, they said article 7 of the constitution states that sovereignty belongs to people, but Jamaat asserts in its charter that sovereignty belongs to the divine and that it somehow has the mandate to govern as the divine’s representative on earth, which is utterly repugnant to the constitution of the state.
Tanya Amir, the lawyer for the 42 applicants – among whom are freedom fighters and members of martyred freedom fighters’ families – told The My News that the court may hold a hearing on the application and two other pending petitions against Jamaat on Monday.
The applicants include academician and historian Syed Anwar Hossain; writer and researcher Shahriar Kabir; educationist Shyamali Nasreen Choudhury; actor, stage director and theater producer Ramendu Majumder; actor and film director Mamunur Rashid; Shawan Mahmud, daughter of martyred musician Altaf Mahmud; Prof Muntassir Uddin Khan Mamoon, historian and president of “1971: Genocide-Torture Archive and Museum”; Prof Meghna Guha Thakurta, executive director of Research Institute, Bangladesh, and former teacher of Dhaka University; freedom fighter and film director Nasiruddin Yousuff Bachchu; historian Prof Mesbah Uddin Ahmed; academic and social activist Mahfuza Khanam; human rights activist Rokeya Kabir; Dhaka University’s senior teacher Asif Munier; film actress and former state minister advocate Tarana Halim; Dr Nuzhat Choudhury; social activist, feminist and environmentalist Khushi Kabir; artist and painter Birendra Kumar Shome; film maker and writer Tanvir Mokammel; writer, journalist and columnist Haroon Habib and; senior journalist and the Daily Kalbela’s Editor Abed Khan.
Earlier on June 26, the contempt of court petition was filed by Rezaul Haque Chandpuri, secretary general of Bangladesh Tariqat Federation, and two others against five Jamaat leaders, including its Ameer Dr Shafiqur Rahman for holding public meetings as a political party despite its leave to appeal against the cancellation of its registration as political party with the Election Commission awaiting the apex court disposal.
In the petition, the petitioners also brought a contempt of court allegation against three government high officials, including the home ministry’s senior secretary, for allowing Jamaat to hold the programme in Dhaka.
The same day (June 26), they filed a separate petition with the Supreme Court seeking its order of injunction restraining Jamaat from carrying out any political activities including meetings, public rallies and processions using its name or banner.
