Trying to keep Awami League followers calm: Former Bangladesh minister

New Delhi, Nov 17 As it announced a nationwide shutdown on Tuesday and demonstrations across the country from November 19, Bangladesh's Awami League party on Monday said that it is trying to keep its followers "calm" following the "illegal" verdict given by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) after conducting a "farcical trial" against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

"Of course, protests are going to take place everywhere in the coming days. We anticipate that it will only get worse in terms of protests. We are trying to keep our followers calm. We are encouraging peaceful protests instead of violence. We do not want to do what the BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party), Jamaat (Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami) and the so-called student protesters had done, which was indiscriminate killing of civilians and security officials and destruction of public properties last year. We do not want that. We want peaceful protest. We want public support and we want an ouster of this regime," former Bangladesh Minister Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury told IANS in an interview.

Chowdhury's comments came hours following an ICT verdict on Monday that pronounced a death sentence for the former Prime Minister after finding her guilty on the charges of "crimes against humanity" related to the demonstrations in July 2024.

In an interview with the IANS, the former Education Minister said that the situation in Bangladesh is only going to get worse following Monday's developments.

"Instead of having a proper investigation, a fair trial, reconciliation between all the political forces, they have chosen the destructive path, which is basically trying our leader in a one-sided court and an unfair trial, making it a totally sham and a farce persecution. So we anticipate the coming days to be more unstable, full of protests and very chaotic," said Chowdhury.

"There was nothing fair about this trial. It was politically motivated from the very beginning. The amendments into the law were totally illegal because this government does not have any authority to make such amendments. The accused were not represented by any lawyer. Some of the senior lawyers of the Dhaka court wanted to represent our leader Sheikh Hasina. They were denied that role. The state, the interim regime, appointed a Jamaat-e-Islami activist as the state-appointed attorney of our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who obviously was in connivance with the prosecution team. It was all pre-written. The judgment was pre-written and it was aimed at barring her from standing in the next election. That was their objective," he added.

The former minister in the Hasina government also highlighted Pakistan's growing influence in Bangladesh.

"India already has a lot of information on what's happening in Bangladesh. Pakistani militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish are claiming that they are going to open branches in Bangladesh. ISI has started its operations from the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka. Senior Pakistani military officials are visiting Bangladesh. So, India knows that Bangladesh is being turned into a terror haven, into a terrorist-producing country in order to bring in as much regional instability as possible. India will, of course, look after its own interest, its own security interest, given what has happened recently in Delhi and earlier in Pahalgam and other places. During our time in government, we did not allow ISI to operate in Bangladesh. We dismantled the militant network and infrastructure. But right now, they seem to be out on the street running the government and completely in charge of the Yunus government itself. It's not good for the future of Bangladesh," remarked Chowdhury.

He highlighted that the Yunus government's decision to connect with the Pakistani military intelligence establishment will eventually turn out to be their path to destruction.

"They will make the country suffer from it. They are a small group of people. They are not representative of the majority people of the country. And as soon as they are ousted, the better it is for the nation. It's not good for the country... In the coming days, we hope that this government will be ousted by the people who are already reacting to this unfair and illegal verdict. Right now though, things don't look very positive for Bangladesh's future," he commented.

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