Trump 2.0 World and Sheikh Hasina’s Sinking Boat in Bangladesh

SALEEM SAMAD

Just days after Donald Trump won a landslide victory in the US presidential election, Ambassador Humayun Kabir, a credible commentator on foreign affairs, said in an interview with an independent newspaper Prothom Alo that the bilateral relationship with Bangladesh and the United States will not be sailing in troubled water, as expected by ousted Sheikh Hasina’s loyalists.

“I do not foresee any major changes in US-Bangladesh relations,” the former diplomat said confidently.

He also said that unlike in South Asian countries, American foreign policy does not change after a change of government, whether the Democrats or Republicans win the election.

It is very rare for an incumbent regime in US polity to engage in witch-hunting of loyalists of the previous government or opposition political party. This unfortunately is very common in South Asia’s revenge political culture.

Dr Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s interim government’s chief adviser, has congratulated Trump on his election as the new US president, expressing optimism for strengthened bilateral ties and future cooperation.

Anyway, as reported on social media the disgraced Awami League and its exiled leader Sheikh Hasina were upbeat about Trump. They had an impression that his election victory would help Hasina return to power, who is living in exile in Delhi.

The Awami League loyalists believe that Trump, who lauded Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “good friend” and in a condemnation of “the barbaric violence against Hindus, Christians…in Bangladesh”, would lend moral support to Hasina to return to power with the Indian help.

US President-elect Trump, who will be sworn in January 2025, painted Bangladesh under Dr Yunus as if the country is “in a total state of chaos.”

Promptly, Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to the chief adviser, said that Trump was provided wrong information on the contentious religious minorities issue after the interim government took charge in early August.

Meanwhile, Michael Kugelman – a South Asia expert, particularly focused on Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan – said US-Bangladesh relations experienced a reset this year.

It began after Bangladesh’s election last January, when US President Joe Biden sent Hasina a warmly worded letter, expressing “my sincere desire” to co-operate in a wide variety of spheres, after many months of bilateral tensions in the lead up to an election that the State Department would categorize as not free or fair.

In a hurry, Hasina sank her ‘Boat’ (the party’s election symbol). And political observers explain that it would be a herculean task to salvage the capsized boat in the years to come.

Obviously, Hasina ignored Biden’s warning. She went ahead to hold a flawed parliamentary election for the third consecutive term. The reset truly took off after the mass movement against Hasina last monsoon that brought Yunus to power. The State Department quickly issued a statement saying it “stands ready to work” with Bangladesh’s interim government, says Kugelman.

When she fled, she did not leave any message to her party leaders and members, who were left behind to face the wrath of the Interim Government. In a hurry, Hasina sank her ‘Boat’ (the party’s election symbol). And political observers explain that it would be a herculean task to salvage the capsized boat in the years to come.

Dr Yunus, like the US government, had been critical of Hasina’s illiberal and anti-democratic policies, writes Kugelman, the Director of the South Asia Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Netra News, an investigative journalism portal based in Sweden.

However, Trump’s election campaign “Make America Great Again” in his recent social media broadside against Bangladesh should be viewed against the backdrop of US electoral politics, he opined.

Meanwhile, a verified Facebook of Awami League announced observing Shaheed Noor Hossain Day on 10 November, who was killed in police firing in a 1990 student movement during the military rule of Gen Hossain Mohammad Ershad’s (1982-1990). Less than a month later, dictator Gen Ershad was toppled and imprisoned for corruption.

The Awami League announced at a protest rally at Noor Hossain Square in the capital Dhaka to eliminate undemocratic forces (the interim government of Dr Yunus) and restore the democratic system.

A purported audio message (which could not be verified independently) of Hasina urged the protesters to hold the portrait of Trump. Police detained scores of people having Trump’s poster.

Law enforcement crackdown against Awami League with Trump signs has drawn flak from Trump’s supporters on Twitter (X) handle @TrumpUpdateH. It says: Bangladesh police arrests Trump supporters for celebrating Trump’s victory.

Dr Yunus’ office also in a press release has made a rebuttal of the news stories in Indian media regarding the crackdown on Trump supporters in Bangladesh.

There have been no arrests or crackdowns on the Trump supporters, said the chief adviser’s media wing on Sunday night.

The government has vowed to prevent the Awami League protest. The statement described the Awami League as a “fascist party” and added that the political outfit would not be allowed to hold any gathering anywhere in Bangladesh.

Earlier, Dr Yunus in an interview with the British newspaper Financial Times said there is ‘no place’ for Hasina’s ‘fascist’ party in Bangladesh’s politics.

The inventor of “Banking the Poor” described the political party (Awami League) of ousted authoritarian leader Hasina as exhibiting “all the characteristics of fascism”.

He reiterated that Bangladesh would not seek the exiled leader’s extradition from India before the International Crimes Tribunal’s verdict, where she has been accused of crimes against humanity.

The FT writes that political rivals and human rights groups have accused the Awami League of rigging at least three elections (2014, 2018 and 2024), carrying out extrajudicial killings, and politicization of state institutions during Hasina’s 15-year tenure (2009-2024).

The students who toppled Hasina from power have been demanding to ban the Awami League. The government has already banned the student’s wing Chhatra League for mobilization of armed vigilante “Helmet Bahini” during the Monsoon Revolution.

While the government is debating whether the party should be temporarily suspended from politics, required to reform, or banned entirely.

Regarding the democratization process of the country, the government is in a fix on how to justify when a free, fair, inclusive election is held to form a political government.

The 84-year-old Nobel peace prize winner speculates that the Awami League might disintegrate, but stressed that its fate would not be decided by his interim administration as it was “not a political government”.

Any decision on whether Awami League could participate in a future election would be decided by a “consensus” of political parties themselves, he told FT. “They have to decide their political space.”

On the other hand, Awami League’s cyber warriors, loyalist intellectuals, journalists and expatriate Bangladesh nationals have been arguing that after Hasina fled to India, she is still recognized as Prime Minister of Bangladesh by New Delhi.

This prompted South Block in New Delhi to explain the status of Hasina. “We have repeatedly said that she (Sheikh Hasina) is a former Prime Minister, that is where it stands,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Randhir Jaiswal told the journalists in New Delhi last week.

However, India is officially yet to accept that the people of Bangladesh have toppled the Hasina’s government. It could be understood from the striking feature of Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s statement in the Lok Sabha (the Lower House of the People) on August 6 (the following day Hasina fled to New Delhi) – a complete failure to mention the Awami League government’s egregious violation of human rights, and the killings of over 1,000 students and maimed nearly 30,000 people in 36 days of July and August.

Jaishankar began setting up a context for the people’s uprising saying that there had been “considerable tensions, deep divides and growing polarization in Bangladesh politics” since the January election. “This underlying foundation aggravated a student agitation that started in June this year,” he told the Lower House. “There was growing violence, including attacks on public buildings and infrastructure, as well as traffic and rail obstructions. The violence continued through the month of July.”

The minister’s statement does not hint that Hasina’s government reacted with overwhelmingly excessive force against students, and police opened fire on protesters with live rounds, writes Tanim Ahmed in an independent newspaper The Daily Star.

Since the Indian external affairs minister glosses over the former government’s brutality, it appears to paint the anti-government movement behind Hasina’s fall with a nefarious intention from its genesis — which fits into the Awami League’s narrative — that this was a movement fomented by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islami or even external forces such as the US.

In fact, BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami took advantage of what turned into a bloody anti-government campaign and publicly supported the student movement.

Back to Jaishankar’s statement, when he says, “Events took a very serious turn.” His deliberate disregard for brewing tension among Bangladeshis, Awami League’s intolerance for dissent and telltale signs of the Hasina regime turning into a classic autocrat show a rather myopic and oversimplified Indian take on what is happening in Bangladesh.

Jaishankar’s articulate and witty tête-à-tête with journalists or at discussion panels around the world convincingly demonstrates that he lacks the caliber to appreciate these nuances. One wonders, then, if he had not been properly briefed by his aides on what happened in Bangladesh.

Tanim Ahmed concludes that the Indian establishment had built relations with the Awami League instead of Bangladesh.

The South Block’s Look East policy was to keep Hasina in good humor and continued to support Awami League for expedience despite its faults, and in the process alienated the people of the country.

In a contradiction to the philosophy of Chanakya (375–283 BCE), an ancient Indian master of diplomatic strategy, the debacle created by South Block was putting all eggs in one basket of Hasina. When the eggs are spoiled, the damage control is not effectively working.

Today, with the ouster of Hasina and the Awami League, India is quite naturally seeing more than its fair share of criticism and a dip in popularity.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, 11 November 2024

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Indeed a diplomatic blunder for PM Modi, if he ignores Yunus in New York

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh diplomatic channels have requested India for a sideline meeting between Dr Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser of Bangladesh Interim Government, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the upcoming United National General Assembly (UNGA) next week in New York.

Prestigious Indian newspaper Hindustan Times reported that PM Modi is not expected to meet Yunus on the UNGA sidelines, which both leaders are set to attend.

There may be more than one reason why Modi would shrug his shoulder in despise Yunus for his comments on Bangladesh-India relations in a recent interview have not gone down well in New Delhi.

Political observers state that Yunus should find an opportunity to meet Modi on the margins of UNGA to update on the bilateral relationship between the two neighbouring countries.

The two leaders had a telephone dialogue on 16 August, a week after the Nobel laureate Dr Yunus took oath as head of the Interim Government. Modi reiterated India’s support for a democratic, stable, peaceful and progressive Bangladesh.

Modi also urged Yunus for the safety and security of the “Hindus and all other minority communities” in Bangladesh.

The two leaders spoke for the first time in the backdrop of the fast-moving developments in the neighbouring country, which earlier this month witnessed the dramatic removal of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the subsequent internal political turbulence.

Several journalists based in Delhi quoting insiders in South Block that Modi will have a packed schedule for his three-day visit to the United States, as he is set to attend the Quad Leaders’ Summit in Wilmington, Delaware, on 21 September and address the Summit of the Future at the UN General Assembly on 23 September.

However, sources in the South Block said such a meeting is not part of the Indian side’s agenda. A meeting with the head of Bangladesh’s interim government isn’t on the schedule,” one source told Hindustan Times.

In a press interview, Yunus, the inventor of micro-credit and women’s empowerment, which helped several million women to escape from the cycle of poverty in rural Bangladesh, criticized former premier Sheikh Hasina for commenting on developments in Bangladesh while in exile in India.

He did not hesitate to suggest that Bangladesh could seek her extradition and said India should move beyond the “narrative” that every political party other than Hasina’s Awami League is “Islamist”.

Meanwhile, Touhid Hossain, the de facto foreign minister and other advisers of the Interim Government, have repeatedly raked up the possibility of seeking the extradition of Hasina, who fled to India after her autocratic regime collapsed on 5 August.

Hossain went a step forward and said that if Delhi is stubborn on the issue of deportation, it would create an “embarrassing situation for the Indian government”.

The External Affairs Ministry has refused to be drawn out on any possible Bangladeshi request for her extradition, describing it as a hypothetical matter.

The Iron Lady of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina landed at an air force base in Delhi and is living in a safe house, literally in seclusion. She was unable to meet her daughter Saima Wazed, Regional Director of the World Health Organisation South-East Asia Region based in New Delhi. Her brother Sajeeb Wazed failed to get clearance from the Delhi administration to fly from Washington DC to meet her mother living incommunicado with her sister Sheikh Rehana.

India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told the Indian parliament that “At very short notice, Sheikh Hasina requested approval to come, for a short term to India, following an unprecedented political upheaval in Bangladesh.”

Some academicians said it would be another diplomatic blunder of Delhi’s South Block if a dialogue is not held at the soonest between the two leaders.

Modi does not know the immediate plan of Hasina’s stay for a number of days in India. Most importantly he does not know what to tell Yunus, who will press him for the extradition of Hasina to face the music of justice for the deaths of hundreds of students and protesters and their bloods spilt in the streets.

She is also blamed for enforced disappearances, extra-judicial deaths and confinement of her opposition and critics in secret prisons.

There is no doubt that she knew very well of the horizontal and vertical corruption, bank loot, money laundering, and second home of most lawmakers, Awami League senior leaders, bureaucrats, and law enforcement officers. She deliberately did not crack down on rogue elements.

It is feared that if Bangladesh officially demands her extradition, she may be moved to Russia, an anti-west where she can live happily ever after.

First published in the Northeast News portal, Guwahati, India on 21 September 2024

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

How Hasina, with India’s support, broke the back of Pak-sponsored terror in Bangladesh

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh is presently at low ebb on militancy by Muslim extremists with or without links to the international terror network.

But top terrorism researchers and anti-terrorism police officials do not rule out any possibility of visitation of terrorism in the country, especially by the home-grown Islamic jihad.

Two secretive groups, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Ansarul Islam, presently dominate Bangladesh’s jihadist landscape, a top Counter Terrorism & Transnational Crime (CTTC) official confirmed who declined to be identified for security reasons.

Since 2015, two jihadist groups have targeted foreigners, secularists, intellectuals, religious, and sectarian minorities, and other perceived opponents, writes International Crisis Group.

In the last decade, despite widespread acts of violence by Islamic extremists, officially Bangladesh had always denied the presence of international jihadist forces inside its borders.

“There’s no Islamic State [ISIS] in Bangladesh,” declared Bangladesh Prime Minister and Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina in February 2016.

This does not imply that Bangladesh can lower its guard on terrorism and no country can afford to do so, says Prof Imtiaz Ahmed, a high-profile researcher on terrorism and violent extremism.

Sheikh Hasina’s government adopted zero-tolerance for terrorism, with several institutions dedicated to countering and preventing terrorism and violent extremism in Bangladesh, says Prof Ahmed of Dhaka University.

Nearly two decades ago, security and intelligence specialists at a conference of Intelligence Summit at Pentagon City, Washington DC predicted that Bangladesh will become the next epicentre for terrorism and jihad unless Bangladesh authority takes steps to contain the imminent crisis. During the same period, similar warnings were given by the New York Times and Washington Post.

Bangladesh nationals have joined terror hotspots in 36 countries. Hundreds of the recruits in different periods boarded flights from Dhaka international airport, with full knowledge of security agencies.

Since the 1980s, for three decades, nondescript militants from Bangladesh or trained in Bangladesh entered Afghanistan, Chechnya, Egypt, Aceh province in Indonesia, Jammu & Kashmir, Malaysia, Myanmar, Mindanao in the Philippines and other Muslim countries where jihadists were active.

Earlier concerned people and national media often interpreted that the radicalised militants are recruited from among the illiterate rural population, pointing their fingers at students who studied in tens of thousands of Madrassa (Islamic schools) spread all over Bangladesh.

Exiled Bangladesh-origin feminist author Taslima Nasreen, rubbished the arguments that poverty makes somebody a terrorist.

Well, political scientist Prof Ahmed has conducted an in-depth study ‘Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Violent Extremist Offenders in Bangladesh’ and interviewed scores of captive militants both faith-based and left extremism in prisons.

People with relatively poor financial backgrounds are more susceptible to faith-based extremism, he added.

Ahmed said the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, had created a major impact in Bangladesh, with hundreds of militants who joined the Mujahideen during the anti-Soviet campaign against the invasion of Afghanistan following the calls from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States to resist communism in Afghanistan.

After the collapse of the Mujahideen-led regime in Kabul, most of the militants from Bangladesh returned home and started a violent campaign under HuJI-B (Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Bangladesh) under the complicity of the government.

Fazlul Rahman, a Bangladeshi-born jihadist and founder of HuJI-B, joined by dreaded jihadist leaders from Pakistan, Egypt and the Middle East, were the five associates who signed Osama bin Laden’s first-international 1988 ‘fatwa’ purportedly was a call for jihad against the United States and its ‘infidel’ allies.

Ahmed explains the figure of the exact number of Bangladesh nationals who fought alongside the Mujahideen is unknown, but others put the figures at 3,000-foot soldiers.

Interestingly there is no information on whether militants from Bangladesh joined the Taliban during the two decades of America’s presence in Afghanistan, and the reason was absence of sponsors and recruitment.

The departure of flights to jihad’s hot spot destination and subsequently the return of hundreds of militants under the nose of the security agencies only happen with the state’s complicity of the Islamic-nationalist regime of Khaleda Zia, several counter-terrorism analysts described.

The recruitment, investment and radicalisation by outlawed Al Qaeda, Al-Qaeda in Indian Sub-continent (AQIS), Ansar al-Islam, Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), Hizb ut-Tahrir (Bangladesh), HuJI-B, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or Daesh), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and so on so forth are stringently monitored and data thoroughly analysed by CTTC expert team with inputs from other anti-terror units and friendly intel agencies, including the United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism (UNOCT).

The fresh recruitments in recent times are through end-to-end encrypted messaging apps organised by mostly “elite urban young men” who were reported missing by their families and are accommodated discretely in temporary sleeper cells operated by the jihadist network.

Often the sleeper cells are busted and the missing persons reported to the police are found. Instead of returning them to their families, they land in high-security prison cells.

At least 615 extremists within the age bracket of 25-40 are currently held in prisons, among whom 371 are on trial and 244 were convicted, according to a study on ‘Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Violent Extremist Offenders in Bangladesh’ published in September 2022 by Centre for Genocide Studies (CGS) of Dhaka in collaboration with CTTC.

The rehabilitation of violent extremist offenders VEO is a critical task for a nation-state, recommends Ahmed. The government has employed several hard and soft approaches to deal with the threat of violent extremism.

The police and other anti-crime forces have a deradicalization programme, as well as rehabilitation and reintegration into society. The authorities have plans to enlarge a proactive programme for the rehabilitation and reintegration of faith-based VEOs are on the table.

The recent sleeper cells of the terror network are reportedly low in budget and ordinance, unlike the high-profile ISIS jihadists responsible for the carnage at Holey Artisan restaurant in an upscale residential area in Dhaka in July 2016. The jihadists were armed to the teeth with automatic rifles, grenades and knives.

Possibly an hour before the fire-fight with the heavily armed military commandos, the Islamic State’s Amir for the Bengal [Bangladesh] region Shaykh Abu Ibrahim Al Hanif [aka Tamim Chowdhury], spoke to their clandestine news agency Amaq. He dubbed the dead militants as fallen martyrs – all young men in their 20s – posing with a terror black flag of the dreaded Islamic State.

In fact, two months before the brutal assault, Canadian-Bangladeshi-born Chowdhury, the mastermind of the ‘Dhaka Attack’ dared to bully Bangladesh and India in the 14th edition of the defunct Dabiq — the Islamic State’s online magazine.

“Bengal is an important region for the caliphate [Islamic Empire] and the global jihad due to its strategic geographic position,” Chowdhury ranted.

In typical terror rhetoric, “Bengal is located on the eastern side of India, whereas Wilāyat Khurāsān [the Afghanistan-Pakistan region] is located on its western side. Thus, having a strong jihad base in Bengal will facilitate performing guerrilla attacks inside India simultaneously from both sides and facilitate creating a condition of tawahhush [fear and chaos] in India along with the help of the existing local mujahideen there.”

The rogue Islamic State in 2015’s dared to declare Jihad (holy war) against “the [so-called] secular murtaddin [infidels] of the present Awami League government” and threatened that “the soldiers of the Khilafah will continue to rise and expand in Bengal and their actions will continue.”

Not to anybody’s surprise the official Dabiq magazine attributed the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) as ‘nationalist murtaddin’ and the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) as “parliamentary murtaddin”, the online magazine wrote that they [BNP and JeI] are an alliance of ‘grave-worshippers’ who falsely claim to be “lovers of the Prophet”.

On a note, ISIS laments that various “jihadi” groups in Bangladesh became fragmented through disputes over issues of creed, methodology, leadership, strategy, and tactics.

Fortunately, most of the sleeper cells of ISIS in Bangladesh and India have been bulldozed by anti-terror forces with credible two-way intel shared with Dhaka and New Delhi.

The intel immensely helped to accurately analyse various info and could zero in on the locations of ISIS militants. The targets were successfully raided by the CTTC, highly trained anti-terror units of Dhaka Metropolitan Police and smashed the jihadist outfit in Bangladesh.

Like the global terror outfit Al-Qaeda, ISIS’s covert activities have been severely dented in Bangladesh.

Simultaneously the jihadist’s sleeper cells in adjoining Indian states across Bangladesh territory were also smashed by Indian Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).

Since the assassination of Islamic State supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and other leaders by US drone attacks in Syria and Iraq, ISIS terrorism has significantly scaled down threats in South Asia.

The in-road of terror footprint was globally established after the US-allied-led ‘War Against Terrorism’ and Afghanistan was invaded to punish Al-Qaeda and Taliban’s high command and crush the global terror network.

When they (Al-Qaeda) were on the run, Al-Qaeda’s communications and finance surreptitiously moved to Bangladesh in collaboration with the notorious Pakistan spy agency Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI).

The ISI hawks of Rawalpindi GHQ negotiated with rogue officers within the Bangladesh security agency of Director-General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) to provide logistics and security to Al-Qaeda to setup their clandestine operations from upscale Gulshan in Dhaka, according to researcher/writer Mohiuddin Ahmed in his book ‘Hunt for Al-Qaeda (Al Qaeda’r Khoje)’.

For example, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia knew about the covert operations and was vetted by his delinquent son Tarique Rahman who established ‘Hawa Bhaban’, a powerhouse parallel to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

Several sources suggest the former security agencies officials who are privy to the process of creating a safe house for the most-wanted jihadists in the posh Gulshan area.

The terrorist hub was uncovered by an elite investigation team of British TV Channel-4 in November 2002. The investigative journalists unveil the ISI nexus with DGFI in providing a safehouse for Al-Qaeda on the campus of a mosque.

The revelation came with a heavy price. The Channel-4 journalists and local fixers (including this journalist) were arrested and sued under sedition laws. They were interrogated, tortured and intimidated by three DGFI officials.

The presence of Al-Qaeda in Bangladesh was exposed in a Time magazine October 2002 cover story “Deadly Cargo” after a painstaking investigation found clandestine military training camps bordering Bangladesh-Myanmar inaccessible hill forests of Ukhiya, in Cox’s Bazar and were operated by Al-Qaeda and coordinated by HuJI.

The camps accommodated nearly 2,500 jihadists. It is difficult to ascertain how many batches and what number of combatants were trained in Ukhiya.

The separatist outfits: United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), Bodo Liberation Tigers Force (BLTF) and Kamtapur Liberation Organization (KLO), National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) and the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and the list grows on and on were provided shelter and logistics in Bangladesh territory.

Taking advantage of India’s pitch against illegal migration in the northeast from Bangladesh, the authorities furtively provided shelter to their leaders and allowed their combatants to set up camps inside Bangladesh territory.

Their finance, logistics and ordinance were exclusively provided by ISI. In one such, gunrunning operation destined for Assam, a huge stash (10 truckloads) of weapons, ammunition, rocket launchers and hand grenades were accidentally seized by police when it was unloaded under the cover of darkness at a jetty in Chittagong (now Chattagram) in April 2004.

The ordinance originated from Cambodia was shipped by ace gunrunners and unloaded at Chattagram. The ULFA military wing chief Paresh Baruah was physically present, while mid-level officers of DGFI and National Security Intelligence (NSI) were supervising the unloading of the illegal consignment from a large fishing vessel, as reported in the Bangladesh Observer.

After 2009, with Hasina in power, Dhaka and Delhi agreed to seize cross-border terrorism. Hasina’s crackdown detained most of the separatist leaders and deported them to India, where the belligerents are held as prisoners of war (POW). Scores of militant camps were dismantled.

Simultaneously, on the orders of Bangladesh [Central] Bank, all the bank accounts of the separatist outfits and their allied business conglomerates were shut down.

The sudden move by the authorities severely fractured the backbone of the separatist movement in northeast India, also known as Seven Sisters.

The nexus between Pakistan and Khaleda Zia was established after the former ISI chief General Asad Durrani admitted to meddling in northeast Indian states and funding the right-wing BNP during the 1991 general elections in that country.

The confession was made at Pakistan’s Supreme Court’s hearing on the spy agency that had allegedly disbursed Rs 50 crore to BNP chairperson and former prime minister Khaleda Zia ahead of the 1991 elections in which the BNP won and formed the government.

It is presumed that the ISI was active in Bangladesh whenever the BNP has been in power (1991-96) and later during 2001-2006.

Similarly, Khaleda’s assassinated husband General Ziaur Rahman provided umbrellas for Nagaland and Mizoram secessionist leaders and allowed guerrilla camps to be set up in Chattagram Hill Tracts (CHT) in the last quarter of the 1970s.

The shakeup in DGFI and other state intelligence agencies was initiated by Hasina after she became Prime Minister 14 years ago. She broke the nexus with foreign intelligence, especially ISI’s local patrons which have vanished in quicksand.

On the other hand, Bangladesh counter-terrorism officials dug into the covert activities of diplomats from Pakistan. The furore over expelling diplomats from Dhaka and Islamabad caused fresh diplomatic rows between the two countries.

Bangladesh expelled two diplomats, one woman envoy for alleged “terror financing” and another for “spying”, while Pakistan expelled a woman diplomat from Islamabad for an unknown reason.

A ‘new chapter’ for terror in Bangladesh seems to have surfaced in the Rohingya refugee camps teeming with dispossessed youths. The camps are another fertile ground for potential recruitments for extremism – some recruitments were voluntary, others were coercion and intimidation to join the banned Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA, also called Harakah al-Yaqin) to separate north Arakan for the homeland of the Rohingyas.

ARSA’s supremo and key leaders were born in Karachi, Pakistan and raised in Saudi Arabia – some Bangladesh security experts believe the shadows of the terror network were nurtured by ISI, which rang alarm bells in both Dhaka and New Delhi.

Pakistan-based terror outfits were looking for fresh ground for jihad. Immediately, the Pathankot attack mastermind Mohammad Masood Azhar, founder of Pakistan-based terrorist organisation JeM in September 2017 called on the world’s Muslims to unite for this cause of the persecuted Rohingya. “We have to do something and do it urgently. Myanmar’s soil is earnestly waiting for the thumping sound of the footsteps of the conquerors”.

“The dream [of Al-Qaeda] is to create a larger Islamic beyond the territorial limits of Bangladesh to include Muslim areas of Assam, north Bengal and Burma’s [Myanmar] Arakan province.” That dream, Alex Perry writes in Time magazine that if Islamic terrorists were allowed to continue their operations in Bangladesh, could be a nightmare for the region.

The HuJI-B, JeM, LeT and AQIS envisaged engaging the Myanmar troops and anti-Rohingya Buddhist monks through Islamic jihad to create a haven, which Bangladesh security forces are hell-bent on not happening in the region.

First published in the India Narrative, New Delhi, India on April 25, 2023

(Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. Views expressed are personal. Twitter: @saleemsamad)

Bangladesh Buddhists pick up pieces after mob rampage

Radical Muslims in southern Bangladesh desecrate Buddhist monasteries Photo: Saleem Samad

ANBARASAN ETHIRAJAN

SHASHANKO BARUA's voice trembles when he recounts how he and his family ran for their lives to escape an angry Muslim mob last year.

They hid in a forest for a whole night near their village in the south-eastern Bangladeshi district of Cox's Bazar before returning home.

Mr Barua, a Buddhist, says that when he returned to the village, he found his small tin-roof house had been completely destroyed and all his belongings looted. His neighbours also faced similar fates.

Hundreds of Buddhists became homeless overnight after thousands of Muslims rampaged through villages, looting houses and burning down Buddhist temples.

While Bangladesh has witnessed bloody clashes between Muslims and minority Hindus in the past, it was a rare attack on the Buddhists.

'We had to run'

Local people say the violence went on for nearly six hours in various villages of the Ramu sub-division.

The protests were triggered after an image allegedly insulting the Koran was posted on the Facebook site of a Buddhist youth. Investigations by local media later revealed the youth had nothing to do with the incident.

"The mob first destroyed our temple and looted everything. Then they targeted our houses. We had to run, as I was worried that my teenage daughters could have been [sexually] abused," said Mr Barua, who is a day labourer.

"I am still scared to go out to work. I don't want to go too far to find work as I feel unsafe."

Since the attacks, the Buddhist community in this district near the border with Burma has been in shock. They still wonder with dismay how their own neighbours - Muslims who have been living with them in harmony for centuries - could turn against them.

"There were people from all the major political parties among the rioters," said a community leader who did not want to be identified.

"Some were local leaders who are well-known to us. It is difficult for outsiders to know where these Buddhist temples are situated and which house belongs to the Buddhists."

Religious minority

Buddhists constitute less than 1% of Bangladesh's estimated population of more than 150 million. Around 90% of Bangladeshis are Muslims and Islam is the state religion.

Community leaders took me to various villages and temples destroyed during the riot in late September. Some of the temples were centuries-old and the main temple in Ramu, Sima Vihar is a famous tourist destination.

Buddhist monks say hundreds of precious metal and wooden idols of Lord Buddha were stolen during the riots and religious books in different languages were torched.

Buddhist leaders say the riots were not a spontaneous reaction to the alleged Koran insult. Tension had been building up in the area hours before the rampage, and they say hundreds of people were brought in trucks and vans from Cox's Bazar and Chittagong districts.

Some of them say the attacks were pre-planned and co-ordinated. They also blame the local police and the civil administration for not responding to their pleas when the attacks were going on.

"To destroy the 100-foot Buddhist statue in our temple, the rioters used seven locally-made bombs, tyres and gun powder. Luckily there was no major damage to the statue except for some cracks," said Ben Karunasri Bhikhu, a Buddhist monk at the Uttar Mitha Chori village.

'We are scared'

Villages far from Ramu sub-division were also targeted by the mob. In a few villages, Hindu temples and houses were also ransacked.

"The situation is calm now but we are scared. The real culprits have not been arrested. So, they are still threatening us," said Dr Rakal Chandro Kormokar, a doctor in the village of Ykong Bazaar, near the town of Teknaf.

Buddhist community leaders in the Ramu area, however, said they were satisfied with the swift response of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. She visited the area soon after the riots and ordered all destroyed temples and houses be rebuilt.

Reconstruction work has been going on under the direct supervision of soldiers and border guards. A stream of officials has visited the area, and politicians and civil society leaders have made the journey to show solidarity and support with the Buddhists.

"We have reassured the local people that these things will never occur in the future," said Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir.

Although some try to link the attacks on Buddhists with the ethnic conflict between Rohingya Muslims and the majority Buddhist population in the neighbouring Burmese state of Rakhine, local people dismiss the notion.

Thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh following communal violence last year in Rakhine state. For many it was out of the frying pan and into the fire.

But while the government has increased security around the Ramu area, many Buddhists still feel insecure. They say the majority Muslim community there should make efforts to reach out to them.

"Our neighbours were also involved in the attacks. So the government should take measures to make the local Muslim community show tolerance. Only that will bring a permanent solution and prevent such events in the future," said Nilutpal Barua, a teacher.

Bangladesh has long prided itself on having secular values, but the attacks on minority Buddhists and Hindus have dented this image.

Buddhists leaders say their temples and houses will be rebuilt soon, but it will take time for the emotional wounds to heal.

Appeared in BBC online, February 1, 2013

Anbarasan Ethirajan is Bangladesh correspondent for BBC News

India’s Growing Ties with Bangladesh

SANJAY KUMAR

WHILE INDIA’s relationship with its western neighbor Pakistan has been faltering despite concerted efforts, on the eastern front a new bonhomie is forming with Bangladesh.

The recent signing of a new extradition treaty and visa regime between India and Bangladesh, signed by Indian home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and his Bangladeshi counterpart Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, marks a major shift in their relationship.  India has long demanded an extradition treaty with Bangladesh, which was not forthcoming due to an adversarial relationship with the previous regime in Dhaka.

With the treaty, New Delhi has gained a way to clamp down on insurgency in the northeastern region of the country, long a hotbed for separatist and insurgent groups who mostly operate from Bangladesh and other neighboring countries.

It is believed that senior leaders from the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and other underground groups are hiding in Bangladesh. The new treaty will allow India to deport them.

Bangladesh also stands to benefit, with India pledging to track down the two convicted killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who are believed to be hiding in India.

Likewise, the new liberalized visa regime is a boon for Bangladesh. According to the Times of India, the new regime allows for the provision of multiple entry tourist and medical visas valid up to a year, five-year business visas, and other categories.

While both countries largely stand to benefit from the agreement, the issue of illegal immigration is a sticking point. With a porous, shared border more than 4000 kilometers long, many poor Bangladeshis illegally enter India to find work. The new visa regime addresses this issue to an extent. Some analysts say that the issue cannot be handled comprehensively unless New Delhi issues permits to Bangladeshi migrant laborers.

The India-Bangladesh relationship has been on the upswing since Sheikh Hasina came to power in 2009. The improved relations are largely due to her efforts to stamp out anti-Indian sentiment in Bangladesh.

Along with greater cooperation, economic activity between the two nations has increased. In 2011, India pledged to invest U.S. $1 billion to build infrastructure in Bangladesh.

While the new extradition and visa agreement and stronger economic ties are a clear marker of progress, there is also a good deal of unfinished business between the two countries.

For one, India has not yet signed the Teesta Water Teaty, which will give Bangladesh access to the Teesta River that flows from India.

Meanwhile, India is waiting for Bangladesh to grant transit access to its landlocked northeastern states bordered by Bangladesh.

According to analysts, as the biggest country in South Asia, India is keen to engage its neighbor in a bid to neutralize China’s growing influence there. To do so, New Delhi must give more economic leverage to Bangladesh and allow Bangladesh to have a bigger share of India’s growing economic success.

Greater concessions from India would also boost Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s popularity, offsetting criticism leveled at her by opposition groups.

Political analysts say the extradition treaty and new visa regime are intended to give the Awami League leader a much needed political makeover before next year’s election.

The arrangement also suits India’s new foreign policy vision, which is based on greater economic engagement with its neighbors.

India has struggled to maintain smooth relations with its neighbors. In the case of Pakistan, it has stepped up economic engagement but made little political progress. By contrast, India’s slowly growing ties with Bangladesh have given its Look East Policy a boost and could be the start of renewed progress.

First appeared in The Diplomat, February 1, 2013

Bangladesh: Between Justice and Politics

PRATYUSH

“Abdul Bari had run out of luck. Like thousands of other people in East Bengal, he had made the mistake – the fatal mistake – of running within sight of a Pakistani patrol. He was 24 years old, a slight man surrounded by soldiers. He was trembling because he was about to be shot.”

So began an article published in June 1971 that chronicled for the first time the atrocities committed by the Pakistani army and its cohorts to prevent the secession of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. Long before the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) began to evolve in the 1990s, the article by Pakistani journalist Anthony Mascarenhas in the UK’s Sunday Times turned international public opinion against Islamabad and prompted India to intervene and end the war.

On Monday, a Bangladesh tribunal delivered its first verdict, sentencing Abul Kalam Azad, a Bangladeshi Islamic cleric and former student leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, to death for crimes against humanity. Eleven other suspects are awaiting trial. Azad was found guilty in absentia on numerous charges, including genocide, murder and rape. A former TV presenter, he has been on the run since last April and is believed to be in Pakistan. As a member of the Razakar Bahini, an auxiliary force that supported the Pakistani army, Azad helped to crush local resistance in East Pakistan.

Bangladesh says Pakistani troops and their local collaborators killed three million people and raped about 200,000 women during the nine-month war. In the infamous Blood Telegram, American diplomat in Bangladesh, Archer Blood, sent a cable to the U.S. State Department criticizing the U.S. government for its failure to respond to the “genocide” being perpetuated by the Pakistani military.

The scale of the killings would normally have shaken the conscience of the international community. However, unlike the UN-backed International Criminal Tribunals instituted to try war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Bangladesh genocide has received scant international attention. This lack of awareness has persisted, even as victims’ families and human rights groups have spent decades fighting for justice.

International politics are partly to blame. Pakistani troops were let off the hook as part of a broader post-war peace deal between India and Pakistan. Moreover, the Bangladesh Liberation War occurred at the height of the Cold War when the United States, allied with Islamabad, overlooked Pakistan’s atrocities as it sought the nation’s help as a conduit to establish diplomatic ties with China.

But this is now changing thanks to the tribunals. However, these tribunals— referred to as the International Crimes Tribunal— have been controversial since their inception. The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch has repeatedly expressed concerns over the efficacy of the trial, saying that the law under which the accused are being tried does not meet international standards of due process. Critics, including the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, have called the trials a “farce” and see them as a witch-hunt.

The accusation is not unfounded. Zia and current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina are bitter political rivals and have often used state institutions to undermine one another. The Jamaat-e-Islami is an ally of the BNP, which sees the trial as an attempt by Hasina’s Awami League to undermine the BNP-Jamaat alliance.

The court’s standing received a further blow in December when Mohammed Nizamul Huq resigned as chairman of the tribunal. Nizamul left the post after being questioned by The Economist and having private emails published in Bangladesh that cast doubt on the tribunal.

Given the fractured and vindictive political climate in Bangladesh, the risks of new injustices occurring are very real. However, the conviction of a high-profile war criminal is the first tentative step towards closing a deeply haunting chapter in Bangladesh’s turbulent history. The opportunity must not be allowed to wither away.

First appeared in The Diplomat, January 25, 2013

A trial for the future of Bangladesh

Bangladesh independence activists demand trial of war criminals

HAROON HABIB

The war crime tribunals were set up to address a deep-seated national demand for justice, but they are facing a hostile campaign by vested interests at home and abroad

December is a landmark month for Bangladesh. It is the month of the liberation of the country from Pakistan in 1971. And it is also a reminder of a great national tragedy — it was during the same month that year that the marauding Pakistani army and their local agents systematically eliminated hundreds of secular intellectuals just before the liberation on December 16, 1971. It capped a nine-month orgy of violence against civilians in which three million people were killed, 400,000 women were raped and 10 million people fled for bordering Indian States as refugees.

This year, as the country celebrates four decades of its independence, it also faces the task of completing a historic trial against the perpetrators of those horrific crimes.

The trial was long overdue. The events following the bloody coup in 1975 in which Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was assassinated, and the divisive politics thereafter, caused many delays in reckoning with the cruelties. When Sheikh Hasina came to power, this was on her agenda. The move towards justice began on March 25, 2010, under a domestic law framed in 1971. But the path is yet not easy.

In the crucial last year of its tenure, the Hasina government faces, on the one hand, street protests by opposition parties positioning themselves ahead of the elections, and on the other, organized opposition against the trial by the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami, the party that had opposed Bangladesh’s independence, supported by the Khaleda Zia-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

Jamaat-e-Islami and its militant students wing, Islami Chatra Shibir, have chosen the route of organized street violence. Their aim is clear — they want their key leaders, now on trial in war crimes tribunals, to be set free. Jamaat cadres — no one can forget that the party sided with Pakistan army in all conceivable ways to foil the national quest for freedom — have gone as far as to attack the police, snatching their rifles and setting on fire dozens of police vehicles in Dhaka and across the country. They also attacked the Law Minister's motorcade.

The spate of attacks across the country has left several hundred policemen injured, many of them hospitalized with serious injuries. The government sees these as ominous signs of a plot to destabilise the country and foil the trial. The manner in which the police came under attack was somewhat unprecedented, and astonishingly, in most cases, the police lost the battle to the attackers.

Neither have the arrests of a few hundreds Jamaatis stopped the violence. Jamaat, which has grown over the years to become the most organized cadre-based party both in terms of its funding and structure, launched the offensive from November, continuing it into the nationally sensitive month of December. In the backdrop of sustained street violence, secular, pro-liberation forces are seriously concerned that if such violence in the name of democracy is not checked, it may emerge as a single biggest threat to country’s liberal polity and security. There have been calls for a ban on Jamaat, but there are concerns too that proscription might send the party underground, with more dangerous consequences.

The main opposition BNP has not condemned the actions of its Islamist ally. Rather, it has been providing vital support to Jamaat’s game plan, to the extent that even BNP sympathizers are concerned that the “poisonous weed” of Jamaat’s theocratic and medieval political and social agenda might ultimately eat up the very vitals of what remains of the party’s remaining liberalism.

Alongside the unrest for the release of those on trial, Bangladesh has been witness to a separate set of violent protests by BNP and Jamaat for restoration of the caretaker government system. Pro-government activists, such as the Awami League student wings, have only added to a volatile situation by taking it upon themselves to thwart the opposition protests.

A number of cases in the war crimes courts are awaiting verdict, but the trial process has come under an increasingly hostile campaign at home and abroad. The head of one tribunal stepped down on December 11 after a controversy over his leaked Skype conversations with an expatriate war crimes expert. The tribunal chief’s e-mail and Skype accounts were hacked and the private conversations were published by a pro-opposition newspaper. The resignation, just ahead of case judgments, came as a big shock to vast majority of people who want justice done, but were celebrated as a “victory” by the Jamaat and BNP.

A total of 10 accused — most are Jamaat leaders — are presently in the dock. Jamaat has reportedly deployed significant sums of money to influence the US policymakers against the war crimes trial. Law minister, Shafique Ahmed, alleged that the government has evidence to show that Jamaat has appointed lobbying firms in the U.S. and the U.K. to frustrate the trial. The minister alleged publicly that Mir Kashem Ali, a Jamaat leader now facing trial, and also the key person behind the fast growing Islamic Bank, as also the head of Jamaat’s media house, had paid $25 million to the U.S. lobbying firm Casadian Associates.

These challenges to the war crimes trials have, in one sense, reawakened the “pro-liberation” forces, making them aware that there is no room for complacency. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who sees a conspiracy to malign her government at home and abroad, has vowed to move ahead with the trial to fulfil a national obligation.

While the Hasina government can take credit for some unique achievements towards secularising Bangladesh and improving relations with India, some high profile scams, including alleged corruption in the Padma bridge construction, the high prices of essentials, and the bad image of some ministers and field level activists, have all seen its popularity come down. The opportunity is being utilised by those who want this government to collapse even ahead of the next election, so that the vital war crime trial suffers a setback. The scrapping of the caretaker government system, and the U.S. displeasure over the government’s treatment of the Nobel Laureate and Grameen Bank founder Muhammed Yunus have complicated the scenario for Prime Minister Sheikha Hasina.

It is to be hoped that the fast developing situation will not impede the landmark trial, vital for healing a deep national wound. The trial is not only crucial for Bangladesh, but also for the region. If it stalls, there is every possibility of a resurgence of religious extremism in Bangladesh that is bound to affect its neighbours. Born out of a national war fought against religious bigotries and military chauvinism, Bangladesh cannot allow on its soil the tragedies being experienced by Afghanistan and Pakistan.

First published in The Hindu, Chennai, India, December 24, 2012

Haroon Habib, is a journalist based in Bangladesh, news correspondent for The Hindu  and independence war veteran

Sustained Consolidation

S. BINOD KUMAR SINGH

SHEIKH HASINA’S Awami League (AL)-led Government, which came to power on January 6, 2009, has consolidated its secular commitments through 2012, reining in Islamist extremist groups and targeting the Left Wing Extremist (LWE) movement in the country. Overall political stability has been established, though some untoward incidents have, nonetheless, occurred; these have largely been instigated by the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and its student wing, the Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS) with the principal objective of disrupting the ongoing War Crimes (WC) Trials.

According to partial data collected by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the country witnessed 18 terrorism/insurgency-related fatalities in total, including 17 militants and one civilian, in 14 incidents of killing through 2012 (data till December 9). Three Islamist terrorism linked fatalities occurred, including one civilian and two terrorists; in 2010, six such fatalities were recorded, including three civilians and three militants. This is a significant contrast with 2005, when Bangladesh experienced 35 Islamist terrorism linked fatalities, including 26 civilians and nine terrorists.

15 LWE-linked fatalities were recorded in 2012. These included, 12 leaders – Purbo Banglar Communist Party (PBCP) regional leaders – Khalilur Rahman, Mohammad Abdur Rashid, Rahat Ali, Abdul Jalil, Nayeb Ali, Motaleb Hossain, Mostafizur Rahman, Anowar Hossain; Gono Mukti Fauj (GMF, ‘People’s Freedom Army’) regional leaders Tofazzal Hossain, Bidhan Chandra Biswas, Motaled Hossain; and Biplobi Communist Party (BCP) leader Ohidul Islam Rajib – as well as three cadres of PBCP. There were 24 LWE fatalities, all of militants, in 2011; and 50 killings, including 46 militants, three Security Forces (SFs) and one civilian in 2010. Pabna District stood out as the principal LWE centre in 2012, with seven fatalities and eight incidents of arrest in the District.

Meanwhile, SF personnel in Bangladesh arrested 1,616 extremists belonging to various Islamist groups such as JeI, ICS, Jama'at-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT), and Hizb-ut-Towhid (HT) in 2012 (data till December 9), as against 578 such arrests in 2011; 958 in 2010; and 23 in 2009. Dhaka District proved to be the epicenter of Islamist activities, with 32 incidents of arrest; followed by 20 such incidents in Chittagong and 19 in Rajshahi District. A majority of the persons arrested belonged to the JeI and ICS, as they took to the streets demanding the release of their top leaders, who are being tried for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War. A total of 1,244 cadres belonging to the JeI-ICS were arrested in 77 incidents throughout 2012 (data till December 9).

Major Islamist extremist arrests included:
November 19, 2012: Police arrested 107 JeI-ICS cadres in five Districts, including Dhaka, on charges of attacking law enforcers and for vandalism.

November 6, 2012: Police arrested 207 JeI-ICS leaders and cadres from different places of the country for attacking the law enforcers and carrying out ‘destructive activities’.

October 21, 2012: Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested eight HT cadres from PTI Road in Barguna District.

August 12, 2012: RAB arrested 35 cadres of HuT from a restaurant in Dhaka's Panthapath while they were holding a “secret meeting” to plan “subversive activities” and a “massive showdown” after the eid holidays.

July 19, 2012: RAB arrested 17 cadres of HuT from different parts of Dhaka while they were holding an anti-government rally and distributing leaflets containing anti-state propaganda.

May 25, 2012: RAB arrested four cadres of HuT, including its ‘regional commander’, in Shibganj sub-district of Chapainawabganj District, while they were in a secret meeting preparing to distribute books and leaflets.

March 5, 2012: RAB arrested two leaders and a member of JMB, identified as Mohammad Asaduzzaman alias Hazari, ‘chief’ of JMB Khulna divisional unit, Mohammad Wahab, ‘head’ of JMB Savar zone and JMB member Anwar Hossain, from different parts of Dhaka City. RAB also seized several JMB publications and leaflets from the possession of the arrestees.

January 9, 2012: A close aide of executed JMB leader Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai, identified as Emdadul Haque Uzzal, was arrested in the Uttara area of Dhaka City.Police also recovered from his possessions several publications of the banned organisation and some books giving instructions on how to make bombs and operate firearms such as AK-47s.

January 8, 2012: RAB arrested Abu Talha Mohammad Fahim alias Bashar, the ‘finance wing chief’ of the JMB, and his accomplice Mohammad Abdul Alim, from Achintola Bahrampur village in Rajshahi District.

Meanwhile, a total of 34 LW extremists including 14 leaders – PBCP ‘leaders’ Motalib Hossain, Jalem Uddin, Mohammad Shahidul Islam, Korban Ali, Mozam Daktar, Ashkar Ali, Hasan Ali, Sabuj Ali, Yadul Islam, and Nuhu Mia; GMF ‘leaders’ Zillur Rahman, Hanif Biswas and Monirul Islam; and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal-Gano Bahini (JSD- Gano Bahini, National Socialist Party-People’s Army) leader Saheb Joarder – were arrested through 2012. By comparison, there were 66 such arrests in 2011.

The WC Trials , which commenced after the constitution of the International Crimes Tribunal – 1 (ICT-1) on March 25, 2010, by the AL-led coalition Government, has indicted nine high-profile political figures thus far, including seven JeI leaders – Nayeb-e-Ameer (Deputy Chief) Delawar Hossain Sayeedi (on October 3, 2011); former JeI chief Golam Azam (on May 13, 2012); present JeI chief Motiur Rahman Nizami (on May 28, 2012); JeI General Secretary Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed (on June 21, 2012); JeI assistant secretaries Mohammed Quamaruzzaman (on June 4, 2012); and Quader Mollah (on May 28, 2012); and former JeI member Abul Kalam Azad alias Bachchu Razakar (on November 4, 2012) as well as two Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) political figures and lawmakers – Salauddin Quader Chowdhury (on April 4, 2012) and Abdul Alim (on June 11, 2012). A second Tribunal, ICT-2, was created on March 22, 2012, to speed up the trial process.

JeI and ICS cadres have been trying to disrupt the ongoing WC trials from the very beginning, since most of the indicted leaders are from the party. The JeI-ICS combine carried out a nine-day countrywide agitation programme, commencing November 5, 2012, to protest the campaign of ‘repression’ against party leaders and workers, and demanding the release of its top leaders. Many JeI and ICS cadres were arrested in the aftermath of this and other agitations, for attacking the Police in various places. Issuing a note of warning on November 14, 2012, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared, “Launching attacks on the Police by the JeI-ICS trying to obstruct the trial of war criminals will only accelerate the trial proceedings. The more the attacks the faster will be the pace of the trial. No jumping and leaping will work. The trial of war criminals will be held on Bangladesh’s soil.” Indeed, on November 25, 2012, Industries Minister Dilip Barua even urged the Election Commission (EC) to cancel the registration of JeI as a political party as it has failed to fulfil conditions set by the EC. The conclusion of the WC trial before the next elections, due before the end of 2013, is an urgent imperative. In case the BNP comes to power after the 2013 elections, it is inevitable that a concerted effort to suppress the history of the atrocities of 1971 will ensue, and the current WC Trials would be subverted.

Another alarming internal problem is the constitutional provision of a Caretaker Government (CG), which was introduced in the 1996. The AL-led Government, with the passage of the 15th Constitutional Amendment Bill on June 30, 2012, overturned the 16-year-old requirement that general elections be overseen by a non-partisan CG. The BNP-led opposition alliance announced, on November 28, 2012, that they would blockade roads countrywide on December 9, to press for a return of the CG to oversee the next parliamentary polls. Indeed, on December 9, 2012, violent clashes, among BNP-backed blockaders, Police and AL workers, were reported from across the country, including Sirajganj, Dhaka, Narayanganj, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Lalmonirhat and Laxmipur Districts. At least two persons were killed (one each in Sirajganj and Dhaka towns) and more than 290 people, including 40 Policemen, were injured during the clashes. Over 70 homemade bombs went off, around 50 vehicles, including five Police vehicles, were set ablaze and 150 others were vandalised.

The Government’s stand, however, is that the it has strengthened the EC so that it could perform its duty properly, and all 6,000 different kinds of elections held under the present Government over the last four years were free and fair and there were no complaints against any of the polls. The Government stated that all future elections would also be held peacefully and fairly.

Bilateral relations between India and Bangladesh came into sharp focus through 2012, and have witnessed further improvements. The first meeting of the Joint Consultative Commission (JCC) was held in New Delhi, India on May 7, co-chaired by Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni and the then Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna. The Joint Statement issued after the meeting noted that "the legal framework for bilateral security cooperation would be completed with the signing of the extradition treaty.” In a recent development, a joint statement released after the meeting between Union Minister of Home Affairs (UMHA) Sushilkumar Shinde and his Bangladesh counterpart M. K. Alamgir in New Delhi on December 4, 2012, stated that both sides have agreed that the Extradition Treaty will be finalized and signed in January 2013 during the proposed visit of UMHA to Dhaka. According to the statement, both sides agreed not to resort to firing unless fired upon or attacked by terrorists or armed criminals.

During the Home Minister level talks, Bangladesh Home Minister Shahara Khatun stated, on February 24, 2012, that United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) leader Anup Chetia, currently lodged in a Dhaka jail, would be handed over to India by Bangladesh immediately after the legal process for his deportation was completed. As a result of co-ordinated border plans between the two sides, Bangladesh RAB arrested one of the top rebel leaders of National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) from Khagrachhari District of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), on February 16. Meanwhile, Bangladesh, on July 30, handed over Champion R. Sangma, co-founder and ‘chairman’ of the Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA), to India. Further, from September 19, the Border Guards of Bangladesh (BGB) and RAB launched an intensive operation to track down ULFA (Anti-talks) leader Drishti Rajkhowa. The Sheikh Hasina Government’s strong steps to crack down on terrorist elements on its soil have undoubtedly opened up prospects of increasing cooperation in other areas, between India and Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, during the 13^th Home Secretary-level talks between Bangladesh and India, held on October 16-17, 2012, at Dhaka, discussions were held on the implementation of Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, Agreement on Transfer of Sentenced Persons and Combating Terrorism, Agreement on Organized Crime and Illicit Drug Trafficking, ratification of Land Boundary Agreement (LBA)-1974 by the Government of India and protocol signed in 2011. Both sides agreed to allow developmental work, including the construction of Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) and Land Custom Stations (LCSs), within 150 yards of the zero line. They also agreed to constitute a high-level team to monitor the development of border infrastructure.

Dhaka has also taken a number of visible measures in 2012 to curb both Islamist and left wing extremism. The Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Act, 2012, was passed in Parliament on February 16, 2012. According to the Act, the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit can provide Financial Intelligence Units in other countries with information relating to the financing of terrorism, when so required or requested. The Act also included provisions relating to atomic, chemical and biological weapons; to the arms and ammunition used for terrorist activities; and interventions by terrorist and subversive organisations in the financial sector. Earlier, on March 13, 2012, the Speedy Trial Tribunal – 4 sentenced JMB leader Mamunur Rashid alias Zahid to death for detonating a bomb in the Gazipur District Police Superintendent's office in February 20, 2009, in which 16 people were injured.

In another landmark judgement on March 18, 2012, a Dhaka court indicted BNP chief Begum Khaleda Zia's "fugitive" elder son Tarique Rahman and 29 others on charges relating to the August 21, 2004, grenade attack on an Awami League rally, finally formally launching the trial for the attack.

Bangladesh’s achievements on the counter-terrorism and internal security fronts, as well as in improving relations with India, through 2012, have been remarkable. Nevertheless, a note of caution remains to be sounded as the residual capacities of the JeI-ICS are still significant, and their alliance with the BNP remains sound. Against this backdrop, the BNP’s call to start fresh protests from December to bring back the CG system will be the litmus test for the Sheikh Hasina Government.

 

First appeared in South Asia Intelligence Review, Weekly Assessments and Briefings, Volume 11, No. 23, December 10, 2012

S. Binod Kumar Singh, Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management