Dr Shafiqur Rahman, leader of the opposition in parliament and chief (ameer) of Jamaat-e-Islami, has said people’s basic rights are still not established in the country. Rejecting the referendum and failing to implement the July Charter could have dire consequences, he said. People are growing frustrated because the referendum verdict and the July Charter have not been implemented, and in this situation Jamaat leaders and activists must play a responsible role to win public trust.
He was speaking as chief guest on Friday (16 October) at a conference of Jamaat’s Gazipur city unit members (rukons) at Tamirul Millat Madrasa in Tongi.
The conference was chaired by Professor Muhammad Jamal Uddin, ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami’s Gazipur city unit, and was addressed by central and local leaders of the party.
Shafiqur Rahman said the present government was following the path set by the ousted Awami League government through irregularities, corruption and partisanship in the judiciary and the education sector. If this continued, he said, the present government would meet the same fate as Sheikh Hasina’s government. “Looking at the situation, it seems power has passed from one looter’s hands to another’s,” he said.
The opposition leader urged party leaders and activists to work with everything they had to secure victory in the coming local government elections. “People favoured by the ruling BNP are being installed in local government institutions,” he said. “As a result, two kinds of government are effectively running in the country: one based on people’s votes, the other on BNP’s preferences. A reign of plunder is being established in local government and in various important institutions and corporations.”
On Friday the opposition leader also visited Shamim Ahsan, a Jamaat leader from Barguna who was injured in an attack by assailants, at the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (Pongu Hospital) in the capital. There he told reporters that people linked to the BNP and leaders and activists of its affiliated organisations were harassing people in various ways. “Homes have been attacked, shops looted and extortion carried out through intimidation. We have a list of these incidents,” he said.
He said he had phoned the chief whip soon after the incident and called for a fair investigation and for those responsible to be brought to justice. “We want a healthy and fair political environment in the country,” he said.
Earlier, the Jamaat chief attended the grand finale of the five-month “Hifzul Quran Competition 2026” at the Shaheed Suhrawardy Indoor Stadium in Mirpur, Dhaka. The event was chaired by Mohammad Selim Uddin, ameer of Jamaat’s Dhaka city north unit.
Winners of the competition received prizes including trips to perform Umrah, laptops, bicycles and cash totalling half a crore taka.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report