B'desh HC cancels registration of Jamaat-e-Islami

Bangladesh's biggest right-wing party Jamaat-e-Islami was on Thursday banned from contesting future polls by a court here which cancelled its registration in a landmark ruling, leaving the once-most powerful fundamentalist party with an uncertain future.

The bench of justices M Moazzam Husain, M Enayetur Rahim, and Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque passed the judgement accepting a writ petition that challenged the legality of Jamaat-e-Islami's registration as a political party.

Bangladesh Tariqat Federation's Secretary General Rezaul Haque Chandpuri and 24 others had filed the writ petition on January 25, 2009. In the petition, they said Jamaat-e-Islami was a religion-based political party and it did not believe in independence and sovereignty of Bangladesh.

Thursday’s verdict comes at a time when the demand for outlawing the party, blamed for war crimes during the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan, was mounting. Several top Jamaat leaders, including its 91-year-old supremo Ghulam Azam, were recently sentenced either to death or to long jail terms for masterminding atrocities during the war.