Thaindian News

Dhaka, April 4 (IANS) Islamist activists Monday attacked a lawmaker, vandalised 100 buses and set fire to a petrol pump in Chittagong port city of Bangladesh during a day-long strike called to protest the government’s policy to ensure “equal status” to women.

Police picked up 135 activists and in the sporadic pitched battles, 53 people were injured.

A madrassa student had died on the eve of the strike that is seen as beginning of a concerted effort by opposition parties to take on the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on a number of issues.

Lawmaker R.M.A. Obaidul Muktadir Chowdhury escaped unhurt though four policemen were injured in the attack, Star Online, the web site of the Daily Star, reported.

The immediate issue is the government’s National Women Development Policy 2011 that the Islamist groups, joined in by main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ally, Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ), say militates against the tenets of the holy Quran.

The policy seeks to give “equal status” to women in Bangladesh that is an Islamic republic and has a predominantly Muslim population.

IOJ chairman Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini, who gave the strike call, has contended that Islam says “woman can never be equal to man”.

A combative Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Sunday asked: “Who is more powerful, Almighty Allah or Amini?”

She accused Amini, the Islamists and the BNP of misleading people, insisting that the policy her government announced has been formulated “in the light of the holy Quran and Hadith (Sunnah),” the United News of Bangladesh (UNB) reported from the southeastern sea resort of Cox’s Bazaar.

Referring to Surah Al Imran in the holy Quran, Hasina said, “Almighty Allah in this Surah declared that He is the only one, none else, who bestows honour to anyone. My question: How Amini can say he will pull me down? Is he more powerful than Allah?”

Alluding to religious extremism and militancy resorted to by the Islamist groups, Hasina said: “Amini is often vocal about religion, but he is the person who spread wrong conception about Islam, the religion of peace.”

Beginning with Monday’s strike, the opposition is bracing for a prolonged agitation to confront the government on several issues.

“Banking on the country’s Muslim majority population’s religious sentiment, BNP-led opposition parties are planning to wage strong agitation in and outside the parliament,” the Daily Star said Monday.

Some opposition alliance leaders say they will leave no stone unturned to portray the government as “anti-Islamic”, for its move to uphold secularism in the constitution by deleting the phrase “absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah”.

“The main opposition BNP will try to drum up support of all like-minded Islamic political parties to gather pace for the anti-government agitation,” the newspaper said quoting political sources.