Police halted a scheduled Baul music event at Purasunda Government Primary School in Shaistaganj upazila on the night of November 9–10, a day after Habiganj-3 MP and parliamentary whip GK Gouse instructed local authorities not to approve rural folk music programmes.
Shaistaganj Police Station OC Abul Kalam told The Daily Star that residents had complained about noise disrupting sleep and affecting the sick, along with allegations of antisocial activities and money collection at such events.
The superintendent of police had already raised objections at the November 8 district law-and-order committee meeting, where Gouse, also a BNP central organising secretary, urged officials to prevent these gatherings across the district or at least in his constituency of about 425,000 voters.
He said locals “practise religion” and prefer winter waz and tafsir programmes over rural music.
Bangladesh Udichi Shilpigoshthi protested the decision. In a joint statement, acting president Mahmud Selim and general secretary Amit Ranjan De called it state endorsement of a conspiracy against the country’s cultural practices and demanded its immediate withdrawal.
The Bangladesh Awami League has also condemned the decision and criticised the BNP MP for patronizing radical Islamists, who create pressure on the administration and the society as Touhidi Janata.