The decision came soon after police stopped Allama Shah Ahmad Shafi and Junaid Babunagari, the group's ameer and secretary general respectively, in Hathazari from starting for the capital.
The group later sat at an emergency meeting to decide their next course of action.
Within minutes, Noor Hossain Kashemi, Hefajat nayeb-e-ameer and convener of the Dhaka city unit, held a press conference in the capital to announce postponement of the rally.
"Since the government has yet to issue us permission for the rally, we are postponing it for now," Kashemi told reporters during the briefing at Madrasa-e-Jamia Madani, his madrasa at Baridhara.
Contacted by The Daily Star for confirmation by the group's headquarters, Azizul Haque Islamabadi, organising secretary, said they had been forced to postpone the rally in face of resistance by the government.
"We will announce our next programme after a meeting in the evening," he told our Chittagong correspondents.
Ahmad Shafi and Hefajat Secretary General Junaid Babunagari attempted to come out of their office at Hathazari Darul Ulum Moinul Islam Madrasa in the morning around 10:30am to start for the capital to attend a rally, which the group earlier announced to hold at Shapla Chattar in Motijheel.
But policemen posted around the complex sent them back, Maulana Munir Ahmed, press secretary of the Hefajat chief, told The Daily Star.
Police however said they cited security reasons while advising the group leaders not to leave for Dhaka.
"We requested them not to go to Dhaka to hold the rally because there is a security issue across the country due to prevailing political unrest," said AFM Nizamuddin, assistant superintendent of police (Hathazari circle) in Chittagong.
The group, feared for its destructive activities carried out in Dhaka in May, was set to hold a rally at Motijheel tomorrow to press its 13-point demand, which include punishing some bloggers for what its leaders said insulting Islam and scrapping the National Women Policy 2011.
It also intended to put pressure on the government to refrain from holding the January 5 polls boycotted by the BNP-led opposition, sources at Hefajat said.
The Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) had already refused to issue permission to the Hefajat for holding the rally before January 5 and asked it to hold the rally after the election.
As Hefajat had been given permission hours before it held its May 5 rally at the same venue, its leaders thought that the same thing may happen this time.
On May 5, Hefajat members sat at Shapla Chattar the whole day hearing an announcement that Shafi would deliver a speech, drawing an end to the rally. But he did not show up and after midnight law enforcers flushed the demonstrators out.
Earlier on April 6, Hefajat held a rally at the same venue aiming to label the Shahbagh bloggers as atheists in its efforts to turn the country’s majority Muslims against them.
Many senior leaders of the BNP-led 18-party alliance components attended the rally.
Two days back, Hefajat asked the opposition to withdraw the ongoing 83-hour blockade that began Saturday morning.
In reply, BNP said it would withdraw the blockade only if Hefajat got the permission, sources in both parties told The Daily Star.
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