Author: M Rama Rao
Publication: Asian Tribune
Date: December 12, 2005
URL: http://www.asiantribune.com/show_article.php?id=2886
Is Bangladesh going the Afghan way? Some Bangladeshi
security experts believe so. In fact, some analysts like Brig Gen Shahedul
Anam Khan take the view that the country is past the point of ifs and buts.
Anam Khan who is the Defence and Strategic
Affairs editor of the Dhaka daily, The Daily Star, says it is time to come
to grips with 'the frightening prospect of combating an ideologically motivated
group, prepared to kill themselves for the sake of establishing what they
would like to think of as Islam in Bangladesh'.
More worrisome than the capability and reach
of the Talibanized group or groups in Bangladesh is the question: Is Bangladesh
government equipped, politically, technically, and otherwise, to effectively
combat this evil? There is no ready answer for this engrossing question as
yet.
The presence in the ruling alliance of Islamists,
whose goal is establishment of 'Islamic Hukumat', is a cause for worry, undoubtedly.
The unfolding events since August when on a single day the country was rocked
by as many as 400 bomb blasts are a matter of concern for India, which shares
a porous border.
In fact, these should be a concern to the
West too since it has been clearly established that Islamist fundamentalists
are behind the spate of bomb blasts targeted at the courts and judges as also
independent media. Dhaka, Chittagong, Gazipur and Rajshahi are witnessing
bomb attacks more or less regularly.
The Islamists committing these acts of terror
have links with their counterparts in Pakistan. Dhaka's most powerful cleric
Mufti Fazl-ul- Haq Amini studied at a Karachi seminary when jihad in Afghanistan
was the in thing.
The Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB),
which has banned by Khaleda Zia government virtually under pressure from the
West, is aligned with the global network of Islamists particularly in South
and Southeast Asia. A suicide bomber Hossain Ali, who was arrested in Chittagong,
says that Ataur Rahman Sunny, chief of the JMB armed wing and brother of JMB
chief Shaikh Abdur Rahman, is the mastermind of all these attacks. Rahman's
operations commander Siddiqul Islam goes around as 'Bangla Bhai', and he enjoys
good rapport with a section of the ruling alliance.
Hossain told his interrogators that all militant
bomb blasts since August 17 were planned at the meetings at an Ahle Hadith
mosque of Shakhipur and at the JMB hideout in the hilly area of Chittagong.
Militants also appear to be targeting NGOs, though for reasons unclear as
of now, if we go by the leaflets and posters found at Madaripur in the south
of the country. JMB militants have asked a local NGO to stop all its activities
within seven days. "If you (NGO) do not follow, your workers will be
killed and your office will be blown up," the leaflets warned.
That the situation was serious enough is also
clear from the fact that the Bangladesh Parliamentary standing committee on
defence has termed the rise of militancy a threat to the state security. The
Committee Chairman Mahbubur Rahman told reporters that they would like to
know 'how the intelligence agencies are planning to face the militants' threat
and protect our people'.
Obviously, the Bangladesh lawmakers were stirred
into action not only by the attacks on the courts and the serial bomb blasts
but also by the threats faced by diplomatic missions of US, Britain and some
other western countries in the past fortnight. Luckily, Indian mission has
not received any threat as such but the high commission in Dhaka and its consulates
in Chittagong and Rajshai have been put on high alert as terrorists are known
to be spreading anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh.
The growing impression in and outside Dhaka
is that Khaleda Zia government has failed to act firmly against the Islamist
groups. The police are also known to go slow in their investigations just
to avoid facing the 'music'.
May be that is the reason why the country's
apex court has asked the BNP-led Govt why it has failed 'to hold impartial,
adequate and effective' investigations into the bomb blasts since August 17.
The judges also reminded the government that it was its constitutional obligation
to protect fundamental rights of the people. The court made these observations
while hearing a writ petition filed by the chairman of the Human Rights Committee
of Bangladesh Bar Council that represents as many as 40,000 legal practitioners
of the country.
Will the strictures stir the alliance government
to clamp down on Al Qaeda linked Islamists? We will have to wait for a while
to know.
