DHAKA: Police in Bangladesh’s capital used tear gas and sound grenades on Friday to disperse hundreds of members of Hizbut Tahrir, a banned militant group that advocates replacement of the country’s secular democracy by an Islamic caliphate.

Hundreds of activists chanting “Khilafat, Khilafat” gathered for a “march for Khilafat” procession at the Baitul Mukarram Mosque after Friday prayers, defying police barricades.

Police were unable to control the crowd and had to use tear gas and sound grenades to disperse them, witnesses said. Police had warned banned organisations on Thursday against holding public meetings and rallies.

Hizbut Tahrir, banned in Bangladesh since Oct 2009 for posing a threat to national security, has frequently organised protests and marches in defiance of a government ban on public gatherings.

The London-based Hizbut Tahrir seeks to unite Muslims in a pan-Islamic state, but says its means are peaceful.

The Muslim-majority country of 170 million people is one of the world’s largest and poorest democracies.

It has been grappling with political unrest since an interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, took over following protests that drove then prime minister Sheikh Hasina out of the country in August.

Student leader sceptical of establishment

Bangladeshi students who overthrew autocratic ex-premier Sheikh Hasina last year have formed a new political party to finish the work that began with her ouster, the group’s leader said in an interview.

Nahid Islam, 27, was one of the most visible faces of the youth-led protest campaign Students Against Discrimination, which brought down the curtain on Hasina’s iron-fisted rule after 15 years.

The sociology graduate resigned last week from the interim administration that replaced her to lead the new National Citizens Party (NCP), arguing that Bangladesh’s political establishment lacked the will for far-reaching reforms. “They were not even interested in the reforms for which young people sacrificed their lives,” Nahid said.

More than 800 people were killed in last year’s uprising, and Nahid was briefly detained alongside other student leaders.

After Hasina’s toppling, he accepted an invitation to join the interim government.

Nahid’s decision to helm the NCP necessitated his departure from an administration expected to act as a politically neutral umpire while preparing Bangladesh for fresh elections.

Polls are due by March next year and are widely expected to be won by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), one of the country’s oldest political forces.

Nahid said that even if he and his comrades could not form the next government, they had inaugurated a political force set to be influential for decades to come.

“Nobody knew that there would be an uprising, but it happened,” he said.

“I sincerely hope and I believe that we are going to win this time. But this election is not the end of the world… Our target is to sustain this energy for another 50 or 100 or more years.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2025