Tabligh Jamaat demo disrupts Dhaka traffic

More than 500 people, belonging to a faction of Islamic ideological movement Tabligh Jamaat, have demonstrated outside the Dhaka airport, crippling traffic in the northern part of the city, report agencies.

Police said the demonstrators protested the arrival of the Islamic organisation's supreme council member Saad Kandhalvi from India.

"The Tabligh Jamaat is split over Saad Kandhalvi's leadership. A faction is opposing his arrival," Airport Police OC Noor-a-Azam said.

Protests started around 9am, before Kandhalvi's arrival in Dhaka.

A good number of Tabligh Jamaat men put up a barricade at the Airport Road intersection around 12 noon as they got information that Indian Tabligh Jamaat scholar Maulana Saad Kandolvi was arriving here, Rashed, commanding officer of the Airport Armed Police Battalion, said.

He said Saad Kandolvi reached the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport by a Thai Airways flight around 1:30pm. However, the Tabligh Jamaat activists did not withdraw the barricade until 4:00pm, disrupting traffic on the roads from Kakoli to Gazipur.

Residents said the protesters gathered in front of a local mosque Wednesday morning and started demonstrating, hampering traffic on the road.

Police have intervened but the demonstration disrupted traffic on one of the busiest roads in the city, which leads to some national highways.

Tabligh Jamaat is the largest organisation of Sunni Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. Its headquarters, referred to as the Markaz, is based in New Delhi. Its operations are conducted through a 13-member central council, called the Nezamuddin.

Kandhalvi has recently announced himself as the chief of the body, which created a rift among the senior members of the Tabligh Jamaat's Bangladesh chapter.

In November, a scuffle broke out between two groups on the premises of Dhaka's Kakrail Mosque, the headquarters of Tabligh Jamaat's Bangladesh chapter.

In an effort to avoid such untoward incidents in future, an advisory council was formed. "Protests are being held across the country over his arrival," the organisation's member Abdul Quddus told a news portal.

He said Saad Kandolvi might have been scheduled to join the first phase of the 53rd Biswa Ijtema, the second largest congregation of the Muslim community after the holy hajj, to be held from January 12-14 on the bank of the Turag River.

A police officer wishing anonymity said the pro-Qaumi Madrasa Tabligh Jamaat followers, led by one of its influential leaders Maulana Muhammad Jubayer, have long been opposing the arrival of Saad Kandolvi here following his some controversial comments. He said Saad Kandolvi might have been taken to Kakril Mosque from the airport.