Jamaat kicks off rally, defying police ban

City Desk :
Jamaat-e-Islami has opened its rally in Dhaka’s Motijheel despite failing to secure police permission for the gathering.

Supporters of the group gathered in Arambagh ahead of the planned rally on Saturday and erected a make-shift stage on pickup vans.

Jamaat’s rally started at 2 pm, coinciding with the highly anticipated gatherings of the BNP and the ruling Awami League in the city as the political temperature rises ahead of the national election.

However, the police have prohibited Jamaat’s assembly, placing barricades on the road near the Shapla intersection since the morning.

Tension flared when Jamaat loyalists sought to breach a police barricade near Notre Dame College and move towards the business district of Motijheel.

But Abdur Rahman Musa, head of Jamaat’s Dhaka Metropolitan North unit, sought to calm the situation as he urged the group’s adherents to cooperate with the police and not to breach any barricade.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan had previously said that Jamaat had not been granted permission to hold the rally, with instructions given to the police to disperse their activists.