Ansar can’t be blamed for yesterday’s clash: Farhad Mazhar 

The Bangladesh Ansar cannot be blamed for the clash with students in front of the Secretariat last night, political analyst Farhad Mazhar said today (26 August).

“We do not have any intelligence reports. About what happened with Ansar yesterday, where were the detectives? Why were they so late? Since morning they [Ansar] were staging demonstrations,” he said at a round table at the Tofazzal Hossain Manik Miah Hall in the capital.

“I will not blame Ansar. I have repeatedly said we do not want any conflict between students and Ansar. The Ansar are our brothers, and what they did yesterday, they were forced to do so because of our failure. We will need the Ansar after a few days,” he added.

Police have arrested a total of 382 Ansar members following last night’s clash. A Dhaka court sent them to jail this afternoon.

Regarding demand for speedy trials of the Ansar members from some groups, he said, “You want speedy trials, I do too. But the word ‘speedy’ is dangerous. We need justice more than fast justice. Judge quickly, but judge fairly. We want to know the truth.”

Mazhar further said, “We have two types of elections ahead of us. One where the election would form a constitution. Another is where a government would be elected after forming the constitution. So, political parties would have to wait till the election of a government.”