Western Resistance

« World: Sensitive Muslims Hurt by Bush's Use of "Islamic Fascists" | | UK: Another Mosque Is Set Alight »

August 12, 2006

Bangladesh: Islamists Linked To Government Throw Bomb At University

The government in Bangladesh is formed from a coalition of four parties. The Bangladesh National Party (BNP) heads the coalition with its leader Khaleda Zia being Prime Minister. The Jatiya or Ershad Party is a member of the coalition as are two Islamist parties, the Islami Oikya Jote and the Jamaat-e-Islami.

The Islami Oikya Jote has been involved with mounting persecutions against the Ahmadiyya, who are regarded by some Muslims as "heretics" as they believe in a prophet who came after Mohammed. They have also been suspected of having links with the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, the Islamist terror group which has committed countless atrocities in the nation. On May 29 five of the seven members of its ruling council or shura of JMB, including its main leaders Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai (pictured above left), were sentenced to death.

The other Islamist party in the government coalition, Jamaat-e-Islami, is led by Motiur Rahman Nizami (pictured below right). And this group is intractably connected to the JMB, both directly as a party and via its student wing, the Islami Chhatra Shibir. Nizami is reputed to have killed hundreds of Hindus during the Bangladesh war for independence (established in 1971), when he had been the leader of Islami Chhatra Shibir.

We first began to describe concrete links between the Jamaat-e-Islami and the JMB on December 15 2005 and again on December 27. On Dec 14, the leader of JMB's Chittagong branch, Aman Ullah, had started to confess all, and he was brought out for a press conference by his interrogators from RAB (Rapid Action Batallion), where he was expected to make a prepared statement.

Ullah said that as well as having 200 suicide bombers ready to be "activated", JMB also had the support of thousands of former cadres of Islami Chattra Shibir or ICS. These "few thousand" Shibir individuals would assist JMB in its aims to install an Islamist Sharia-based state in Bangladesh.

This mention of Jamaat-e-Islami involvement caused panic in his RAB handlers, one of whom said: "Why don't you ask him about Indian intelligence agency RAW and his visit to India instead of asking him about Saidee?"

Saidee is Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, the Islamist lawmaker of Jamaat-e-Islami, who was recently allowed into Britain, as we reported on July 15. Sayeedi is a lawmaker for Jamaat-e-Islami, who has called Hindus excrement and also called for British and US forces in Afghanistan to be killed.

Tapes of some of Sayeedi's sermons were recovered from the home of Aman Ullah.

The second in command of the shura of JMB, Bangla Bhai, also used to be a member of the Jamaat student wing ICS. He announced in May 2004: "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." Bangla Bhai had joined ICS while at Azizul Haq College in Bogra.

When RAB officers had finally captured most of the JMB shura members by April of this year, an alarming fact emerged. All seven members of the terrorist organisation's ruling council had strong links to the Jamaat-e-Islami party and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir. The full details can be found in the Bangladesh Daily Star of April 28.

And though the main leaders of JMB are now in custody awaiting their executions, the Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chatra Shibir are still actively involved in Bangaldesh's political life. And they are as intransigent as ever.

Today, AFP via Yahoo News reported that earlier today, at the Rajshahi university in the eponymous northwestern town and state, Islami Chatra Shibir student activists confronted other students. The ISC students then threw a bomb at the others, who were fine arts students.

Police constable Mamun is quoted by AFP as saying: "Jamaat-e-Islami's student party Islami Chatra Shibir was responsible for the bombing. There was a confrontation about something and in retaliation the Islami Chatra Shibir students blasted a homemade bomb injuring two fine arts students."

The two injured students were admitted to hospital but were not seriously hurt.

The "something" which Mamun refers to is actually quite a big "something", as it involves murder, politics and corruption on the part of ICS. The Daily Star reveals that a rally was being held at Rajshahi university and one of its lecturers, Mahbubul Alam Salehi, had come into the college, flanked with police protection. The rally was for Islami Chatra Shibir and Jamaat-e-Islami. Members of other student bodies had been forming their protests against the rally, and particularly against Salehi, near the University library.

Salehi is the head of the local Islami Chatra Shibir, and had inspired the rage because he has been implicated of the murder of a Professor at the Rajshahi University. Professor S. Taher Ahmed had been murdered on February 3. Three people who were arrested admitted to carrying out the murder of Taher, who was from the Geology & Mining Department.

The three said that they had been told to murder Taher, on the orders of university teachers Mia Muhammad Mohiuddin and Mahbubul Alam Salehi. Mohiuddin, when questioned, admitted his involvement in the murder of the professor, and named Salehi as his accomplice. Salehi had fled, but made a brief appearance in Rajshahi on Feb 10, surrounded by ICS cadres, and then disappeared for five months.

When he was back in custody, a judge allowed him conditional bail on Monday July 3. The very next day, Salehi had returned briefly onto the university campus to mount a show of strength for ICS. Student leaders and lecturers also received numerous death threats by phone at that time.

The death threats caused panic, not only because of the murder of Professor Taher Ahmed. As we reported earlier, another professor from the university had been murdered on December 24, 2004.

The reasons for 65-year old Professor Yunus' killing were never made plain, even though Abdur Rahman, head of JMB, confessed to ordering the killing. On February this year, the property of one of the professor's killers was confiscated. Jafar Babu was a leader of the Islamic Chatra Shibir. Another of the three who murdered the professor was Zillur Rahman, a member of Islami Chatra Shibir. The Bangladesh Independent stated:

"Dr. Mohammad Younus, President of Rajshahi unit of Bangabandhu Parishad and a Professor of the Department of Economics was killed in the early morning of December 24, 2004 by the assailants through stabbing and hammering on the back of his head at Binodepur area of the city during his morning walk.

Police arrested Shibir leader Salekin in this connection. During interrogation Salekin mentioned the name of Jafar Babu, a Shibir cadre as the prime accused in the murder of Prof. Younus. Jafar Babu remained absconding since the incident. Following Jafar Babu's failure of his surrender to the court, the court ordered the seizure of all moveable properties."

According to the South Asian:"Campus sources said the miscreants stabbed him in the chest, stomach, head and other parts of the body and also struck him with iron rods after gagging him with a towel. The miscreants left the body on the spot, about 200 yards away from his residence." The professor's only crime seems to have been his involvement with Bangabandhu Parishad, which is allied to the secular oppostion party, the Awami League.

Last month, the Bangladesh Observer that corruption in Rajshahi's local department of the Ministry of Home Affairs, cases against the killers of Yunus and Ahmed are being hampered, along with others. The fact that Islamic Shabir Chatra members can apparently murder with impunity, not even lose their jobs at a University, and can then return to parade that they are somehow above the law, is a worrying situation for many.

Professor Yunus and Professor Ahmed are not the first Professors to be murdered by members of Islami Chatri Shibir. On the morning of Friday November 16, 2003 a professor was killed by Islami Chatra Shabir members in Chittagong. Professor Muhuri, who was shot at point-blank range as he read his newspaper, was a Hindu former freedom fighter, and principal of the Nazirhat College.

60-year old Gopal Krishna Muhuri was visited by six men who burst into his home, and demanded he tell them the whereabouts of Tayebur Rahman, a local leader of the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), student wing of the main opposition Awami League.

Professor Muhuri said he did not know, and one of the masked gunmen shot him through the ear. The bullet exited through the other ear and collapsed the skull. His wife insisted the media show what had happened. We present a picture below this article, which is grisly. For more information, see here. His widow filed charges against six members of the Islami Chhatra Shibir.

Islami Chhatra Shibir had been banned by Professor Muhuri from his campus since 1975. As mentioned in a Daily Star editorial, the actual killer got away "scot-free" because of his links with the government.

Next January there will be the Bangladesh general elections, and already there is maneuvering from all parties towards this end, with strong accusations being made, and there is always the threat of student conflict. The Jamaat-e-Islami is a party which, like its counterpart in Pakistan, takes part in the democratic process, yet ultimately seeks to destroy secular democracy and replace it with sharia-based "Islamic fascism".

And its student wing, the Islami Chatra Shibir, is not only allied to the main pro-sharia terrorist group in the nation, but it has no problems in arranging for its perceived enemies to be murdered, apparently with impunity. It helps to have accomplices in the government.

WARNING: the image below is extremely graphic:

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at August 12, 2006 7:39 PM

Comments

Posted by: Cornelius at August 13, 2006 1:20 PM

Post a comment