Student-led NCP demands Bangladesh election wait until 'justice and reform' done

Dhaka, Jul 5 (PTI) Newly floated influential National Citizen Party (NCP) on Saturday demanded Bangladesh’s planned election in February next year be halted until the two other major agenda of Muhammad Yunus’ interim government -- “justice and reform” -- were completed.

The student-led NCP, which was floated in February this year, said justice must come first, followed by reform, and only then elections could be held, in an apparent reference to the Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal's trial against deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, in absentia, on a major charge of committing crimes against humanity. Several of her party colleagues too are facing a similar trial in person.

“Justice and reform must come before elections. On this very soil of Bengal, we will ensure justice for the killings of our brothers—shot by Sheikh Hasina, the Awami League, and the police -- we will bring those who committed mass killing to justice,” NCP convenor Nahid Islam said.

Islam was speaking during a discussion organised as part of the series of events coinciding with the first anniversary of the Awami League regime’s ouster on August 5 last year after a more than a month-long student-led agitation that had witnessed violence at several places across the country.

The NCP's demand came a day after its visibly close ally, the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, said no free and fair election was possible without fundamental reforms, with that party's chief Shafique Rahman saying “a number of fundamental reforms must be made for fair elections.” The NCP and Jamaat made clear their stance while former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which appeared to be the single major party in the absence of now disbanded Awami League, demanded the polls be held first since the justice and reform were a continuous process.

BNP had earlier demanded national elections by December this year but after a meeting between its acting chairperson Tarique Rahman and Yunus in London last month, it was announced that the general election would be held in the first half of February 2025.

NCP emerged as an offshoot of Students against Discrimination (SAD) that had led last year’s violent movement dubbed as 'July Uprising' resulting in Hasina's ouster in August 2024. The students had initially taken to the street for reforms in the quota system in government jobs.

Yunus had taken over as chief adviser on August 8 last year, three days after Hasina left for India. Nahid Islam was part of Yunus' team of advisers, akin to a cabinet, but quit earlier this year to form the NCP.

Hasina and several of her colleagues in the party are being tried at the Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD) in person or absentia on charges such as committing crimes against humanity through their attempts to tame the uprising in a brutal manner.

According to a UN human rights office report, some 1,400 people, including students and policemen, were killed between July 15 and August 15, 2024 as retaliatory violence continued even after the ouster of the Awami League regime. PTI AR NPK NPK