Bangladesh: Death for Merchants of Death

S. BINODKUMAR SINGH

After forty-three years, justice finally caught up with Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) ameer (chief) Motiur Rahman Nizami (71) as the International Crimes Tribunal-1 (ICT-1), one of the two War Crimes Tribunals constituted by the Sheikh Hasina Wajed Government, sentenced him to death on October 29, 2014, for atrocities during the Liberation War of 1971. Nizami was found guilty on eight of the 16 charges brought against him. The four charges which brought him death included involvement in the killing of intellectuals; the murder of 450 civilians; rape in Bausgari and Demra villages in Pabna District; the killing of 52 people in Dhulaura village in Pabna District; and killings of 10 people and rape of three women in Karamja village in Pabna District. He was also sentenced to imprisonment for life on the charges of involvement in the killing of Kasim Uddin and two others in Pabna District; torture and murder of Sohrab Ali of Brishalikha village in Pabna District; torture and killing at Mohammadpur Physical Training Centre in Dhaka city; and killing of freedom fighters Rumi, Bodi, Jewel and Azad at Old MP Hostel in Dhaka city.

Nizami, at that time, was the President of the Islami Chhatra Sangha, the students’ wing of JeI, the precursor of the present-day Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), and was also ex-officio chief of Al-Badr, a paramilitary wing of the Pakistan Army in 1971. As a leader, he not only took part in crimes against humanity, the judgment reads, but also delivered provocative speeches to incite thousands of his followers to commit similar crimes during the Liberation War. However, instead of being punished for the heinous crimes, President Ziaur Rahman permitted Nizami and other leaders of the JeI to revive the party in 1978. The JeI subsequently emerged as the largest Islamist party in the country and Nizami established himself as a key leader, organizing the ICS. He became JeI ameer in November 2000, and also served as the Minister of Agriculture (from October 10, 2001, to May 22, 2003) and Minister of Industries (from May 22, 2003 to October 28, 2006) in the Begum Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led Government between 2001 and 2006.

Nizami was first arrested on June 29, 2010, in a lawsuit for hurting religious sentiments. After three days, he was shown arrested for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War. Subsequently, on May 28, 2012, he was indicted on 16 specific charges for his involvement in War Crimes. It took around 29 months to go from the indictment to the sentencing, as the verdict was deferred three times in the past.

Earlier, on January 30, 2014, the Chittagong Metropolitan Special Tribunal-1 had awarded the death penalty to Nizami in the sensational 10-truck arms haul case of 2004, the country’s biggest ever weapons haul case. On February 7, 2014, the verdict on the arms haul case was transferred to the Chittagong High Court for confirmation of its sentences. Nizami filed an appeal with the Chittagong High Court seeking acquittal from the charges and, on April 16, 2014, the Chittagong High Court accepted the appeal. The case is still pending in the High Court.

Meanwhile, as in earlier cases, soon after the verdict, cadres of JeI and its student wing ICS went on rampage across the country. 30 persons, including 28 JeI-ICS cadres and two Security Force (SF) personnel have been injured in violence across the country, thus far. 71 JeI-ICS cadres were also arrested from various parts of the country for bringing out processions. The JeI called for a countrywide hartal (general strike) on October 30, November 2 and November 3

The verdict has attracted some negative international attention. Calling for a commutation of Nizami’s death sentence, the European Union (EU), in a statement on October 29, 2014, declared, “The case of Motiur Rahman Nizami has now reached a stage where an execution of the death sentence constitutes a serious threat.” On October 29, the United States (US) reiterated its support to bringing to justice those who committed atrocities during the Liberation War, but demanded that the trials should be fair and transparent maintaining the international standards.

On the other hand, minutes after the news of Nizami’s death penalty reached the Shahbagh intersection in Dhaka city on October 29, Gonojagoron Mancha (People’s Resurgence Platform) activists erupted into exhilarated cheers. Showing victory signs, they demanded the immediate execution of the verdict, chanting slogans like “we demand hanging”.

Meanwhile, on November 2, 2014, ICT-2 sentenced JeI central executive committee member Mir Quasem Ali (62) to death after finding him guilty on two charges, one for abduction, torture and killing of 15-year-old freedom fighter Jasim of Sandwip Sub-District in Chittagong District; another for abducting, torturing and killing Ranjit Das alias Lathu and Tuntu Sen alias Raju of Chittagong town in Chittagong District. Quasem, considered one of the top financiers of JeI, faces 14 charges, including murder, abduction and torture committed in Chittagong city between November and December 16, 1971. He was allegedly the chief of the Chittagong Al-Badr and was indicted on September 5, 2013, after being arrested on June 17, 2013.

Thus far, the two ICTs conducting the War Crimes Trials, which began on March 25, 2010, have indicted 18 leaders, including 13 JeI leaders, three BNP leaders and two Jatiya Party (JP) leaders. Verdicts against 12 of them (including Nizami and Quasem) have already been delivered, in which nine persons have been awarded the death sentence (including Nizami and Quasem), while three have been sentenced to life imprisonment. Remarkably, in the first-ever execution in a War Crimes case, JeI Assistant Secretary Abdul Quader Mollah (65), who earned the nickname Mirpurer Koshai (Butcher of Mirpur), was hanged on December 12, 2013, at Dhaka Central Jail, against his conviction on charges of atrocities committed during the Liberation Wars of 1971. Of the six other convicts who were awarded death sentences, three – Al-Badr leaders Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Khan and Chowdhury Mueenuddin, and JeI leader Maulana Abul Kalam Azad – were awarded sentences in absentia. The verdicts against JeI leaders Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, are currently pending with the Appellate Division.

Significantly, former JeI Chief Ghulam Azam (92), who led the JeI during the country’s Liberation War in 1971, died at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) in Dhaka city after suffering a stroke on October 23, 2014. Azam had served a year and three months of his 90-year jail term for crimes against humanity. Protest rallies by opponents of JeI were held during his funeral at Baitul Mokarram National Mosque in Dhaka city, demanding that his body be sent to Pakistan for burial there. Ziaul Hasan, chairman of Bangladesh Sommilito Islami Jote, an alliance of progressive Islamic parties, observed, “The janaza (mourning procession) of a war criminal can never be held at the national mosque.”

The verdict against the JeI chief is a body blow to the organization. The Government is already considering banning JeI, which was debarred on August 1, 2013, from contesting elections. Awami League (AL) Joint Secretary Mahbub-ul-Alam Hanif on October 29, 2014, noted, “The verdict has once again proved that JeI was involved in war crimes with a political decision.” With its very existence now under threat, JeI attempts to retaliate violently are imminent, and likely to vitiate the security environment of the country.

Compounding the problem are the recent activities of other Islamist extremist and terrorist groups, particularly the Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). On September 22, 2014, the Detectives Branch (DB) of the Police claimed that 25 top leaders of JMB and seven other Islamist outfits, including Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), Jamaatul Muslemin, Majlish-e-Tamuddin, Hizbul Zihad, Hizbut Tahrik, Jamaatil Muslemin and Dawatul Jihad, discussed a regrouping plan at a meeting in a remote char (riverine island) area at Sariakandi sub-District in Bogra District on May 5, 2014. More recently, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested JMB’s chief coordinator Abdun Noor and four of his close aides from the Sadar sub-District Railway Station in Sirajganj District on October 31, 2014. 49 primary detonators, 26 electronic detonators, four time bombs, 10 kilograms of power gel, 155 different kinds of circuits, 55 jihadi books and a power regulator were recovered from the JMB cadres. During preliminary interrogation, the JMB operatives confessed that they were planning to carry out large-scale bomb attacks across the country, particularly in Dhaka city.

Remarkably, India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA), currently investigating the October 2, 2014, Burdwan (West Bengal, India) blast case, on October 28, 2014, uncovered a suspected plot by JMB to assassinate Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed and carry out a coup. The JMB had also planned to assassinate BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia. Earlier, on October 27, 2014, Indian investigators had revealed that the JMB module in Burdwan had managed to transport six consignments of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) to Bangladesh, to be used for terrorist activities in the country.

The War Crimes Trials, and the cumulative verdicts against leaders of extremist parties and groups that have been at the core of destabilization in Bangladesh over the past decades, have been crucial in turning the country around after years of mounting chaos that had brought it to the very brink of failure. This process needs to be sustained, indeed, accelerated, despite the backlash of extremist entities, if the gains of the recent past are to be consolidated.

First published in South AsiaIntelligence Review, Weekly Assessments & Briefings, Volume 13, No. 18, November 5, 2014

S. Binodkumar Singh is a Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

Bangladesh Arms Trafficking: Residual Networks

Veronica Khangchian

In perhaps, the single biggest arms seizure since the April 2, 2004, Chittagong arms haul case where 10 truckloads of weapons had been seized, a huge arms cache was recovered by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) of Bangladesh, over several days, from the Satchari National Park in the Chunarughat Sub-District of the Habiganj District in Bangladesh, adjoining the West Tripura District in the Indian State of Tripura. Officials disclosed that they recovered 184 rocket shells (40mm) and 153 chargers for rocket launchers abandoned inside one bunker on a hillock in the reserve forest, some 130 kilometers from the capital, Dhaka, during the raid on June 3, 2014. Another six more empty bunkers were located on the same day. On June 4, the RAB found another two bunkers and recovered 38 rocket shells, four machine guns, 95 rocket chargers, 1,300 rounds of machine gun ammunition, and over 13,000 bullets of different calibres. RAB recovered more arms and ammunition, including four machine guns in a bunker on June 8, and also found oil used for cleaning firearms. Another two empty bunkers were also located. As it resumed a search operation deep into the reserve forest on the eight consecutive day, RAB made additional recoveries, including one machine gun barrel, 633 rounds of ammunition, and 54 anti-tank shells, from three newly discovered bunkers, on June 9.

The area from where the arms were recovered was once the base camp of the now-defunct Indian insurgent outfit, the Tripura-based All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF). The camp was later captured by insurgents belonging to the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT). The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), with its principal theatre of operations in the Indian State of Assam, abutting Tripura, and ATTF had earlier smuggled a huge quantity of Chinese-made weapons from the Southeast Asian grey market by sea, landed them around Cox's Bazar or Chittagong, and transported these to rebel bases such as Satchari, from where arms were smuggled into India's troubled northeast.

However, some confusion prevails over the present recoveries. Indian security agencies are yet to ascertain whether these belong to any militant outfit active in India's Northeast. Media reports have speculated on the distant possibility of ULFA 'chief' Paresh Baruah asking ATTF to store the weapons in its one-time bases, and this cannot be ruled out. Reports also indicate that ATTF leader, Ranjit Debbarma (now in Tripura jail), who had close ties with Paresh Baruah, had stocked the cache in collaboration with ULFA militants. A June 4 media report suggested that the arms and ammunition belonged to ULFA leader Baruah. Information gleaned by Indian intelligence agencies from Debbarma, and provided to Bangladesh authorities, led to the recovery of the ammunition on June 3, three kilometers off the border. According to the report, arms smuggled from China by Baruah were kept in the Satchari Forest and were sent to Indian militants at opportune moments.

However, Bangladesh State Minister for Home, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, asserted that the haul was based on intelligence collected by local Bangladesh agencies. RAB Media Wing Director Habibur Rahman added that the arms and ammunition recovered in the Satchari Forest were apparently similar to those recovered in Chittagong in 2004, and to a truckload of ammunition recovered at Bogra in June 2003.  It is significant, moreover, that investigators of the Bogra ammunition haul had determined that the ammunition was bound for the Satchari Forest, and had also confirmed its linkages with NLFT and ULFA.

Earlier, a Bangladesh Court had arrived at a significant verdict in the Chittagong arms haul case, nearly 10 years after the incident. On January 30, 2014, a Chittagong District Court awarded the death penalty to 14 accused, including Motiur Rahman Nizami, Ameer (chief) of the Jamaat-e-Islami (Jel), Lutfozzaman Babar of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the then Minister of State for Home, and ULFA-I 'commander-in-chief' Paresh Baruah (in absentia), for smuggling 10 truckloads of arms into Chittagong District in 2004, during the tenure of the BNP-led Government. Investigations revealed that the weapons were manufactured in China and were being shipped to ULFA. The condemned also include former Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) Director Major General (Retd) Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury; former Director General of National Security Intelligence (NSI) Brigadier General (Retd) Abdur Rahim; and three other NSI officials – Director (Security) Wing Commander Shahab Uddin Ahmed; Deputy Director Major (Retd) Liakat Hossain; and Field Officer Akbar Hossain Khan. Others awarded the death penalty in the case are former Additional Secretary (Industry) Nurul Amin; the then Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Ltd. (CUFL) Managing Director Mahsin Uddin Talukder; CUFL General Manager (Administration) K.M. Enamul Hoque; and three businessmen, Hafizur Rahman Hafiz, Deen Mohammad and Haji Abdus Subhan.

In the initial stages of the trial, which commenced in 2005, only some small fry, mostly labourers, truckers and trawler drivers, were implicated, leaving out the big shots as the then BNP-led Government allegedly tried to cover up the involvement of the state machinery, including its Ministers and high officials of intelligence agencies. However, after an Army-backed caretaker Government took charge on January 11, 2007, ahead of the country’s General Elections, the Court of Chittagong Metropolitan Judge ordered further investigations on February 14, 2008. In June 2011, Muniruzzaman Chowdhury, Senior Assistant Superintendent of Criminal Investigation Department, submitted two supplementary charge-sheets, accusing 11 new suspects. While Paresh Barua and former Secretary of the Industries Ministry, Nurul Amin, have been absconding ever since the recovery of the arms, the other nine are behind bars. Baruah and Amin were sentenced in absentia. The verdict of the Special Tribunal observed that the role of the then Prime Minister Khaleda Zia in the incident was 'mysterious', and pointed to the direct involvement of then Ministers and top military and civil officials. Judge S.M. Mojibur Rahman also argued that the smuggling of such a huge volume of weapons and ammunition was not possible without Government support, and noted, “They [the intelligence officials] were involved in the conspiracy to destroy the entire nation by putting the country’s existence at stake.”

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed has now promised separate investigations into the role of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and her party (BNP) in the Chittagong arms haul case, declaring, ‘The trial of 10 truckloads of arms haul is over. We will now probe afresh the conspiracies behind it, from where the arms came, how it was brought to Bangladesh and who had funded it." The Prime Minister added that Bangladesh had become hotbed of activities of the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in August 1975.

Analysts note that the death sentence awarded to Paresh Barua will have little impact on the outfit as Barua and most of his cadres have already shifted base out of Bangladesh. Intelligence officials in Assam, however, feel that the elusive insurgent leader will be under greater pressure to come forward for talks, should Myanmar act as Bangladesh did, and evict insurgents from India's north-east, including Barua and his cadres, from its soil. The Assam Police have intelligence inputs that Barua is currently operating out of his base along the Myanmar-China border. Officials in Bangladesh argue that the death sentence would at least ensure that Baruah would not be able to enter Bangladesh without the court’s intervention.

Significantly, the verdict comes at a time when ULFA-I is facing a crisis. Sources indicate that not more than 10 hardcore members of the outfit are inside Assam, and that the group has no more than 180 cadres in camps in Myanmar. Senior leaders who were in the Mon District of Nagaland have been called back to Myanmar after the outfit awarded the death sentence to 'operational commander' Pramod Gogoi alias Partha Pratim Asom. On March 16, 2014 [the party's 'Army Day'], ULFA-I asked its members to re-strengthen the outfit, fearing that certain members had a nexus with the SFs. At least eight ULFA-I cadres, including Pramod Gogoi, were executed on the instructions of ULFA-I's 'commander-in-chief', Paresh Baruah, for 'conspiring’ with Police and Security Forces to engineer a mass surrender of cadres over the preceding four months. Seven cadres had also been executed in December 2013, while they were trying to flee the Myanmar base to surrender to the Police. 'Operational commander' Pramod Gogoi was executed on January 15, 2014 in the Mon District. ULFA-I is said to have a total of around 240 cadres at present.

Significantly, the Goalpara Police recovered a stock of ammunition and detonators from ULFA-I along the Assam-Meghalaya border in the Goalpara District on January 27, 2014. The Police disclosed that a group of ULFA-I militants had entered Hatigaon, a village under the Agia Police Station, with arms and explosive materials, which they stored inside a rubber plantation. Goalpara Superintendent of Police (SP) Nitul Gogoi stated, “We got the information that a group under the leadership of Drishti Rajkhowa brought the ammunition from Bangladesh.”

Coordination between the Meghalaya based Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA), one of the biggest procurers of arms in Meghalaya, and ULFA-I, remains a concern. In the latest incident, on June 26, 2014, a militant identified as Dharma Kanta Rai, who was on ‘deputation’ from the ULFA-I to the GNLA, was killed during a rescue operation mounted by West Garo Hills Police at Darekgre near Rongmasugre village in West Garo Hills District, to free four abducted persons from the GNLA and ULFA. The abductions had been carried out on June 25 from Kantanagre village in West Garo Hills District. The deceased ULFA-I cadre was reportedly an improvised explosive device (IED) expert, used by GNLA to target Police movements.

Worryingly, media reports indicate that a large proportion of weapons and ammunition that reach the mushrooming in Meghalaya, are from the armory of insurgent groups presently engaged in peace parleys with the Government. These groups include the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and the pro-talks faction of ULFA (ULFA-PTF). According to sources, these frontline militant outfits never divulged the exact composition of their arsenal and, according to one source, “80 to 90 per cent of these arms lie unused for five to six years and just before their life span lapses, these militant groups prefer to dispose of these weapons.”

Further, despite dramatically improving relations between India’s Border Security Force (BSF) and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB), Northeast insurgent groups continue to maintain some 45 hideouts in Bangladesh, mostly belonging to ATTF and NLFT (21 camps), according to BSF Special Director General B.D. Sharma. He added, on June 20, that the insurgents could not be fully wiped out from Bangladesh soil because deployment of BGB was thin compared to requirements, and that, “They are now raising new forces and we hope that the situation would improve soon. Besides, the terrain and riverine border also come in the way of maintaining effective border vigil.” However, Mohammed Latiful Haider, Additional Director General, BGB, has denied the existence of any camps of Indian militant outfits in the country. The denial came on June 25, after the first day of a border coordination conference held between senior BSF and BGB officials at Kadamtala, at BSF North Bengal Frontier Headquarters near Siliguri, under the Darjeeling District of West Bengal.

Bangladesh has now clearly declared that it would not allow its territory to be used against India. The assurance, reiterated to Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on her first foreign visit on June 26, 2014, came as the External Affairs Minister promised to put extra energy into bilateral ties. Swaraj stated that New Delhi sought a comprehensive and equitable partnership with Bangladesh for a secure and prosperous South Asia.  With recent developments, and agreed cooperation between India and Bangladesh, a further significant improvement can be hoped for.

First published South Asia Intelligence Review, Weekly Assessments & Briefings, Volume 12, No. 52, June 30, 2014

Veronica Khangchian is Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

Bangladesh War Crimes Trials Follow Evidence, Not Politics

MOHAMMAD A. ARAFAT

Bangladesh won its independence from Pakistan in 1971, but at a terrible price. Pakistan didn’t just oppose Bangladeshi liberation on the battlefield. It unleashed one of the most shameful genocides of the 20th century on ethnic Bengali citizens with the help of local extremist groups. As many as three million Bengalis were killed in just nine months and more than two hundred thousand women were raped and tortured.

As is the case with war crimes elsewhere, many decades later those responsible for the massacre are finally being brought to justice. In 2009, a domestic War Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD) was established in Bangladesh to investigate and prosecute those accused of crimes against humanity.

Bangladesh’s war crimes victims deserve justice and so do their families. The passing of time cannot wipe away the horrors of that period even though many of those responsible for mass murder have avoided justice, some by taking refuge in foreign countries. Others have even worked their way into the country’s political establishment.

The purpose of the tribunal is to set right this great wrong. Over the past year, it and a second tribunal have heard evidence against two accused ringleaders of the genocide — Motiur Rahman Nizami and Delwar Hossain Sayeedi. The evidence against both is extensive, compelling and ghastly.

If they are found guilty, they likely will hang, as the death penalty is still part of Bangladeshi law. Verdicts may come at any time.

Nizami is not just an accused killer. He is also the head of Jamaat-e-Islami, an extremist group responsible for a wave of murder and violence across Bangladesh during the past year. Its attacks have resulted in 500 deaths. Jamaat has deep roots in the region going back to its collaboration with the Pakistani military during Bangladesh’s war for independence. Back then, Jamaat launched the fearsome paramilitary group called Al-Badr, which were death squads similar to Adolph Hitler’s SS during World War II.

Jamaat, in essence, it is a domestic terror organization with a political arm. It has worked since Bangladesh’s independence to destroy the country’s pluralistic constitutional democracy and to replace it with a primitive version of Sharia law.

Nizami faces 16 counts of crimes against humanity including genocide, murder, torture, rape and property destruction, all of which are based on eyewitness accounts. As Al-Badr’s chief leader during the genocide, Nizami is accused of either personally carrying out or ordering the deaths of nearly 600 ethnic Bengalis as well as the rape and the torture of many women.

Some of the worst atrocities came at the infamous Mohammadpur Physical Training Institute in Dhaka, which was a human abattoir reminiscent of Nazi death camps.

An entire of generation of Bangladesh’s best minds were wiped out at the Institute, tribunal prosecutors charge, because Nizami and other collaborators devised a systematic plan to torture and execute professors, engineers, artists and scientists. The plan was that if Pakistan could not prevent Bangladesh’s independence, it would seek to cripple the young state in its infancy by destroying its top intellectuals.

First published in The Daily Caller, 09 May, 2014

Mohammad A. Arafat, Executive Director, Shuchinta Foundation

Crime and politics in Bangladesh: Bang bang club

More trials for Bangladesh’s deflated opposition

TEN years after they arrived, the weapons have found their victims. In April 2004 police in Chittagong, the main port city of Bangladesh, intercepted a shipment of rifles, submachine guns with silencers, 25,000 hand grenades and more, worth some $5m. Made in China, the arms may have been shipped with help from Pakistani spies set on causing trouble for India. The weapons were intended for rebels in Assam state in India’s north-east, where insurgencies rumble on.

For years in Bangladesh the legal case went nowhere. Those involved in the arms shipment were ignored. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), under Khaleda Zia, then prime minister, showed no interest in prosecutions. Only after the Awami League, the current government, took office in 2009 did prosecutors begin to consider the crime seriously. On January 30th a trial court sentenced 14 men—most of them from or affiliated to opposition parties—to death on smuggling charges related to the arms haul.

Assuming the sentences are upheld by the higher courts, they carry great political as well as legal weight. By implication, they embroil Mrs Zia’s son, Tarique Rahman. He is judged by many to be the BNP’s next leader—though he is living in London while corruption cases pile up against him at home. Among those sentenced to hang is Lutfuzzaman Babar, a long-time flunky of Mr Rahman’s. This week the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, vowed that her government would work to prove that, in the light of Mr Rahman’s influence at the time, he knew all about the weapons.

Others sentenced to death include a former head of Bangladesh’s military intelligence, another high-ranking Bangladeshi spy, plus (in absentia) a leader of an Assamese insurgent group who is on India’s most-wanted list. Of major political significance, the court also found guilty Motiur Rahman Nizami, who leads Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party and a close ally of the BNP. He has already been indicted by a separate court, looking at war crimes committed in Bangladesh’s war of secession from Pakistan in 1971. He faces the prospect of being sentenced to death twice over.

Jamaat has promised protests against the smuggling verdicts. Though the party has a reputation for street violence, its capacity to create trouble seems diminished in recent months. Many Jamaat activists have either been arrested or shot dead. The BNP also looks utterly broken, unable to persuade followers to return to disruptive street protests against Sheikh Hasina, whether over court cases or elections.

By contrast, the prime minister looks increasingly content. Her Awami League won a general election on January 5th that was boycotted by the BNP and Jamaat. Aid donors and other observers who worried about the poll’s credibility now seem to be coming to terms with five more years of Sheikh Hasina. The official aid agencies of Britain and America have funded an opinion survey suggesting that the Awami League would have won the election even without the boycott. That is a handy fillip for the government.

India, Bangladesh’s giant neighbour, will be pleased with things, too. It is especially close to Sheikh Hasina and the avowedly secular Awami League, and it endorsed the January election. Those who set foreign policy in Delhi are anxious to prevent Bangladesh becoming, as it was before, a haven for insurgent groups that operate in India. They want Bangladesh to resist the sort of Islamist extremism prevalent in Pakistan. And they want it to help limit the flow of illegal Bangladeshi migrants flooding into India for work.

Sheikh Hasina shares India’s aims, while doing everything to flatten the opposition at home. It bodes ill for democratic government. But the state of the opposition—pinned down in court, on the streets and in parliament—suggests a modicum of outward calm may prevail for a while.

First published in the Economist, February 8th 2014