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<strong>By Sumi Khan</strong></p>
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<strong>Hefazat-e-Islam Joint Secretary General Mamunul Haque, who is in police custody, has confessed to inciting violence in Bangladesh against last month&#39;s visit by India&#39;s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the country.</strong></p>
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&quot;If Sheikh Hasina&#39;s government falls, no one can come to power without the support of Hefazat,&quot; said Haque.<br />
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Hefazat-e-Islam group staged a nationwide violent protest in March over Modi&#39;s visit to Bangladesh. At least 16 people were killed in the incident.<br />
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Haque confessed to the police that he used to provoke people against non-Muslim people, open thinkers and progressive leaders as well as the Awami league and PM Sheikh Hasina to grab the power of the country.<br />
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&quot;Haque, who is on a 7-day remand, divulged the information along with other shocking revelations during interrogation,&quot; Harun Ur Rashid, Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka Metrapalitan Police (DMP), Tejgaon Division, told IANS.<br />
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Haque has drawn scrutiny over the massacre, vandalism and violence perpetrated by the Hefazat supporters as well his multiple marriages after being caught with a woman, who he claimed is his second wife, at a resort in Sonargaon on April 3.<br />
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Police arrested Haque on Sunday from the capital&#39;s Mohammadpur in a case filed with Mohammadpur Police Station in 2020. On Monday, a court issued a remand order allowing police to grill him for seven days.<br />
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Haque was grilled on the allegations made by the plaintiff in the case, and he was also shown the video of the attack that day.<br />
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He said that most of the Hefazat members are the leaders of Jamat-e-Islam, the war criminals of 1971 liberation war of Bangladesh.<br />
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Haque further said that he tried to provoke them by branding Shahriar Kabir (president of Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee) a &#39;chicken thief&#39; as a writer Begum Mushtari Shafi wrote in her Biography about Shahriar Kabir.<br />
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He also called for JSD leader Hasanul Haque Inu and former Justice Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik to be beaten with shoes on sight.<br />
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Asked about the remarks, Haque said he made those out of passion.<br />
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&quot;If anyone is found to be using him for a political purpose, he or she will also be brought to justice,&quot; police said.<br />
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&quot;Haque and his supporters are basically followers of Zubair Hasan, another Tablighi faction. So, Haque thought that it would weaken Saad&#39;s faction if they were beaten and kicked out of the mosque,&quot; Rashid said.<br />
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Meanwhile, officials of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) have arrested Ataullah Ameen the assistant organising secretary of Hefazat&#39;s central committee from a madrasa in Dhaka&#39;s Mohammadpur area early morning on Wednesday.<br />
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Police have since arrested more than 15 top leaders of the militant outfit and Jamat-e-Islam in various cases. However, BNP leaders and some left political leaders have demanded release of the militant leaders.</p>
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<em>(IANS)</em></p>
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