Staff Reporter :Jamaat-e-Islami has called a countrywide hartal for today (Wednesday), disagreeing with the Supreme Court (SC) verdict that upheld the death penalty awarded to party senior leader Mir Quasem Ali. However, ambulances, body carrying freezing vans, hospital transports, newspaper microbuses and fire services will be out of the hartal purview.Makbul Ahmad, acting Ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami, announced the dawn to dusk hartal in a statement sent to media after the judgment on Tuesday.”In protest against the government’s conspiracy against Mir Quasem Ali, we announce a dawn to dusk shutdown for Wednesday across the country,” reads the statement.The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the war tribunal’s death sentence awarded to Mir Quasem Ali for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.It also said that Mir Quasem had been deprived of justice in the verdict.”Mir Quasem will file review petition. We hope he will get aquittal if justice is ensured,” the party said in a statement.Mir Quasem, founding president of the Islami Chhatra Shibir, is a member of the Jamaat’s Central Executive Council and the organisation’s fifth most important leader.Meanwhile, around one hundred activists of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir brought out a protest procession in the city’s Moghbazar area on Tuesday morning. At least 15 activists received injuries as police charged baton and fired at the procession. Of them, a pedestrian, identified as Sumon Mia, 22, received bullet injury.Ramna Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Moshiur Rahman said, “A group of Jamaat and Shibir activists brought out a procession in the Sudhi Samaj area around 11:30am over the Supreme Court’s verdict on Jamaat leader Mir Quasem Ali’s appeal. As police tried to intercept them, the Shibir men pelted brick bats towards the law enforcers. The law enforcers shot gunfire to tackle the situation, leaving a youth injured.”The police official said that the injured was admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital under police custody. Suman is currently undergoing treatment at DMCH with injuries in his head and two hands, a hospital source said.
