Western Resistance

« Opinion: Why Does the Left Hate Israel? | | Israel: Rockets Hit Northern Town »

December 27, 2005

Bangladesh: Links Between Government and Islamists

Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) is an Islamist organisation which has sometimes been viewed as the armed wing of the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). The two groups operate in union with each other. These and Harkatul Jihad-e-Islami were responsible for the 459 bombs which went off almost simultaneously throughout Bangladesh on August 17.

The group JMJB was founded by Bangla Bhai (pictured right), who is a former madrassa teacher called Siddiqul Islam. He had studied at Tarafsartaj Senior Fazil Madrasa. The group was unheard of until April 2004, when it began slaying members of the illegal Purbo Banglar Communist Party, killing five individuals in one month, and torturing several others.

A press conference followed, in which Bangla Bhai sat with Abdur Rahman, leader of JMB in a local union chairman's office in Rajshahi district. Bangla Bhai announced that his group had been active for six years before coming out of its closet. "We did not want to declare our presence now. We did not want to take police help at the beginning. We wanted to establish the rights of the repressed people," he explained.

"As a college student, I joined Islami Chhatra Shibir (an Islamist student organisation allied with Jamaat-e-Islami). When I finished my study in 1995, I quit Shibir because Jamaat accepted female leadership although it said it considered female leadership sacrilege," he said.

JMJB forms itself ideologically on the Taliban, though the leader denies that they are connected to the Afghan group. Taskforce Against Torture, a Bangladeshi human rights group, states that Bangla Bhai's JMJB has carried out 500 cases of killing and torture of individuals, often with police turning a blind eye to their atrocities.

The leader of the Bagmara outfit, JMJB unit president Lutfar Rahman, formerly a professor at Atrai Mollah Azad Memorial College in Rajshahi district in the northwest of the country, was arrested on Monday 26 December, states the Daily Star for Wednesday 28th. He had gone into hiding after the August 17 terror blasts.

Lutfar Rahman (pictured left), an adviser and activist for JMJB, has claimed that some ministers in the government and people in the "state machinery", such as district administrators and also the police, have patronised the head of JMB, Abdur Rahman. Lutfar claims that the police supported the actions of Bangla Bhai in its purges of outlaws in Rajshahi.

The Star recently noted that in April 2004:

Though independent media portrayed the JMJB as the armed wing of the JMB, a section in the government through some state machinery actively supported Bangla Bhai who started to slaughter citizens across the northern and northeastern parts of the country. Noor Mohammad, divisional inspector general of police, told the Daily Star on 4 May 2004, that Bangla Bhai and his men were helping the police maintain law and order. "We have asked different police stations to support them whenever they (JMJB men) go to catch outlaws. You know that the Shorboharas (left-wing extremists) have been quite active for many years and it is not possible for the undermanned and ill-equipped police force to hunt them down..." he said.

Bangla Bhai's JMJB was officially banned by the Bangladesh government on February 23 this year. Rahman is known to have continued openly campaigning for JMJB in Bagmara after the ban came into effect.

"I did not find it wrong to be with the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh [JMJB] as I saw several government officials patronising them. I heard Bangla Bhai talking over the phone with some ministers and a police super," Lutfar Rahman states.

He also recalls the former superintendent of police Masud Mia being present nearby when Bangla Bhai had meetings. Since summer, Masud Mia has been under investigation by the judiciary and recently the government.

Rahman's investigators say that his main confessions have involved knowing Bangla Bhai at a close level and assisting JMJB on its raids against "Sarbahara" or outlaws.

Rahman claims that he has not seen Bangla Bhai since May 23, 2004. It was that time that Lutfar led a procession of JMJB in Rajshahi, at which Bangla Bhai was present, threatening journalists and individuals. He also claims that he is not happy with the current bombing campaigns which have been mounted by JMB.

Lutfar Rahman had also been a member of Jamaat-e-Islami, a party in the coalition government. We recently discussed the numerous claims being made that members of the government have been supporters of terrorist groups such as JMB and JMJB.

On December 15 we mentioned how arrested Chittagong leader of JMB, Aman Ullah, claimed that as well as having involvement with al-Qaeda, JMB also enjoyed the support of thousands of former cadres of Islami Chattra Shibir or ICS. ICS is the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, which Bangla Bhai had belonged to until 1995. Aman Ullah said that these ICS "graduates" would assist extremists to establish an Islamic state under Sharia law.

On 4 December this year, one member of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Moulana Washiqur Rahman, was found to be on a list of JMB operatives gathered by police. He had been mixing with militants in villages in Satkhira Sadar upazila, in Tangail district. After the August 17 serial blasts, the Jamaat man went on the run.

The current head of the Jamaat-e-Islami is 62-year old Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami (pictured), who bizarrely accused both the opposition Awami League of sponsoring the August 17 blasts assisted by the Indian government who were using Islamic fundamentalists to patronise subversive activities in Bangladesh.

Formerly Minister of Agriculture in the coalition government, Nizami is now Minister for Industries. In 1971, when Bangladesh was fighting to break free from Pakistan, he was head of Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), and also directed the activities of a paramilitary force called al-Badr. It is alleged that this group killed intellectuals. His personal involvement with killings of Hindus caused him to go underground until 1976, when General Zia brought out the razakar rehabilitation program, and Nizami emerged from the shadows to become second in command of Jamaat-e-Islami.

He has consistently argued for an Islamic educational system in the country, rather than a secular one. Some of his comments on the issue of extremism are strange. Yesterday, the Star wrote that in a television interview, Nizami had accused the newspaper of encouraging more Bangla Bhais, after it did an eight-column-width piece on the head of JMJB in its print edition. "If one can easily hit the headlines by committing wrongful acts, then hundreds of Bangla Bhai will be created in the country," he claimed.

Upon being asked about Bangla Bhai, whom he had earlier dismissed as a fabrication of the newspapers, Nizami said: "I don't have any comments on whether he exists or not. If a man really does exist, he won't disappear for my saying that he does not exist."

The issue of members of the government being involved with militants and extremists is a notion which is not going to disappear. We reported on the involvement of members of another coalition government party, the Islami Oikya Jote, or IOJ, with groups persecuting members of the Ahmadiyyah Muslim sect. Almost as soon as Bangla Bhai emerged into the light of publicity, they were suspected of being patronised by members of the ruling BNP party of Khaled Zia.

The confessions currently being made by Lutfar Rahman are no longer surprising. They only serve to add weight to the arguments being bandied around. What before seemed like wild speculation now seems to be confirmed from numerous individual confessions. On 12th December, Nizami said: "Those who are desperate to prove Jamaat attachment with militants by citing some one's past identity and student life, their lame excuse will be rejected by the people. I like to pronounce firmly that their crooked scheme will fail."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 27, 2005 5:35 PM

Comments

Post a comment