Hasnat and Sarjis withdrew their lawsuit against political parties | Petitions against AL, 10 pages withdrawn

Three leaders of the Students’ Anti-Discrimination Movement yesterday withdrew two petitions they had filed against the Awami League and 10 other political parties, as well as the last three general elections.

Their lawyer Ahsanul Karim withdrew the applications filed on Monday in the Supreme Court.

He told a Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Fatema Najib and Justice Sikder Mahmudur that his clients would not proceed with the petition.

The panel then dismissed the petitions as “unfiled”, meaning they were not presented properly.

However, the lawyer did not reveal the reasons for the withdrawal.

“My clients have instructed me not to file any motions in court. I don’t know the reasons for this decision,” he told The Daily Star yesterday.

On Monday, Abul Hasnat alias Hasnat Abdullah, founder of the movement; Sarjis Alam, one of the key coordinators and currently secretary general of the July Martyrs Memorial Foundation; and Hasibul Islam, deputy coordinator, submitted two separate written petitions through their lawyers.

One of them demanded a ban on all political activities of AL and 10 other parties and their exclusion from all future elections.

He also demanded that the parties be recognized as “terrorist organizations committing mass killings of citizens, destroying democratic institutions and unconstitutional seizure of state power.”

The second petition demanded the invalidation of the results of three national elections held in 2014, 2018 and 2024 under the AL government.

These surveys were conducted without legal authorization and did not meet with legal approval, he said.

The petition also sought a rule of thumb asking why parliamentarians elected from these 11 parties in three elections will not be charged with sedition and also for HC directives canceling benefits the legislators received from the government, including plots and duty-free vehicles.

This newspaper was unable to contact Sarjis and Hasnat for comment.

Hasibul Islam told The Daily Star: “The petitions have been withdrawn but legal action will be taken in the future once they are redacted.

“Political parties that sided with the Awami League during the student movement will not be allowed to conduct political activities.”

Two other top leaders of the movement, preferring anonymity, mentioned two reasons for withdrawing the petition.

They said one reason was that the petitions were filed without consulting other leaders of the movement and the other was that some of the political parties against which the petitions were filed actually sided with the students during the movement.

Apart from AL, the other parties are Jatiya Party (Ershad); Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD); Bikalpadhara Bangladesh; Tarikat Federation; Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB); Liberal Democratic Party (LDP); Jatiya (Manju) Party; Ganatantri Dal; Marxist-Leninist (Barua); and Bangladesh Socialist Party.

By naming the JSD in the petition, they provided the office address of the JSD headed by ASM Abdur Rab, while “Marxist-Leninist (Barua)” had no office address nor did any registered political party bear that name.

The petitions also did not provide the office address of the Socialist Party of Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi Samajtantrik Dal (BASAD) uses the name “Bangladesh Socialist Party” in English.

Among the parties, the LDP, CPB, BASAD and JSD led by Rabu had long led movements against the AL government and sided with students during the quota reform movement, so their inclusion in the petition outraged many people.

“Hasnat and Sarjis filed applications for the injunction without final discussions with us. After submitting the petitions, we held a meeting and in the face of criticism, the decision was made to withdraw them,” one of the leaders told The Daily Star yesterday.