l Jamaat linked with global militant outfits
l Targets minority communities
l Feeds anti-India sentiments
l Accused of killing political opponents
In a major development, the government at long last is finally going to ban Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, a party known for its heinous war crime, by Wednesday for its alleged link with terrorism.
Law Minister Anisul Huq on Tuesday confirmed it.
He disclosed that the government will ban Jamaat by Wednesday in the greater interests of the country.
The party will be banned through an executive order, he told reporters at his secretariat office in the capital Dhaka.
The law minister said discussions will be held with the Home Minister to finalise the process for implementing the ban.
“The Prime Minister has ordered me to take steps in this regard by tomorrow. When you ban any party, you have to do it through an executive order. I would hold a meeting with the Home Minister in this regard a little later and would take a decision on legal ways to do this,” the minister said while talking to newsmen at the ministry on Tuesday.
Anisul Huq said country’s law and order situation will improve if Jamaat and Shibir are banned.
When asked whether the government is going to create a new problem by banning Jamaat and Shibir amid the ongoing movement, the law minister said the government has ample evidences perpetrated from July 16 and the violence which is going on in the name of quota reform movement, are being carried out by Jamaat, Shibir men.
Awami League (AL) General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader also said the government will implement the decision of the 14-party alliance on banning Jamaat and its student wing Chhatra Shibir.
Earlier on Monday, the 14-party alliance decided to ban Jamaat-Shibir to eliminate anti-national evil forces.
The ruling Awami League-led 14-party alliance announced it will ban radical Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Chhatra Shibir for hijacking student protest that resulted in the death of over 200 people.
The decision was taken in a meeting of the alliance chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her residence.
On 7 December 2018 the election commission (EC) issued a notice cancelling the registration of Jamaat.
On November 19 in 2013, the Appellate Division dismissed the Jamaat’s appeal against the High Court order that declared the registration of Jamaat illegal.
Jamaat, backed up by Pakistani spying agency ISI, had hijacked the quota protest movement led to mayhem and arsoning. Jamaat was earlier banned by the Election Commission from participating in elections. Entire Jamaat leadership was opposed to the Independence movement and sided with the Pakistan Army in 1971.
According to the sources, Shibir members are playing an active role in the country’s violent student politics and were involved in attacks against security personnel and citizens alike to ‘thwart the war crimes trials. Shibir has tangible links to domestic international terrorist networks and interacts with well-known terrorist organisations like Harakat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI),among others. Jamaat-Shibir also supports the build-up and maintenance of infrastructures like training camps, provides places for stockpiling weapons and supplies, and recruits new members for a global Jihad. Jamaatul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a banned terrorist group in the country, originated from a faction of Jamaat and maintains close links with its senior members.
In the last decades, the Jamaat was very active in feeding anti-India sentiments, manipulating bilateral conflicts and portraying New Delhi’s foreign policy as anti-Islamic and anti-Bangladesh. Most of Jamaat’s writings and propaganda consider India as the main enemy.
According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, members of the student wings of Shibir are cooperating with Pakistan’s ISI in order to ‘support Islamist subversive agenda in many regions in India, particularly in areas bordering Bangladesh; they also claim that ISI finances Shibir.
Jamaat-Shibir targets Hindu-minority as part of its anti-India strategy. This dates back to the Liberation War when Jamaat claimed that AL and the local Hindu community were Indian agents seeking to turn East Pakistan into a ‘Hindu state’. Members of Jamaat-Shbir conducted ‘large-scale orchestrated attacks on the homes, businesses, and places of worship of minorities, as well as engaging in the abductions and forced conversions of Hindu girls. The violence also targeted Christians and Buddhists.
During 2001-2006 period of BNP-Jamaat rule, Jamaat goons killed 26,000 workers and leaders of the Awami League, including former Finance Minister Shah A M S Kibria and former MP Ahsanullah Master. Several attempts were made on Awami League President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s life during this time. For this reason, Jamaat used its connections with extremist groups such as Huji and JMB, getting them to do the dirty acts of killings which provided them with political protection to spread their extremist ideologies.
Human rights organizations in Bangladesh believe over 100 women might have been subjected to rape. A number of Hindu girls were reportedly abducted in 2001-2006.
A total of 15 police members were killed in 2013 by Jamaat-Shibir during their violence to stop and oppose the war crimes trials. In 419 major incidents of political violence throughout the year 2013, spearheaded by Jamaat-Shibir, 492 people were killed while 2,200 others injured in the incidents.
On the day of the election in 2014, Jamaat killed 26 people, including a presiding officer and torched 582 schools used as voting centers across the country.
They also killed 231 people, mostly by arson and petrol bomb attacks and injured mostly through burning 1,180 others from 4 January 2015 onward. Arson attacks were conducted to burn 2,903 cars, 18 rail carriages and 8 passenger water vessels. Through targeted attacks, 70 government offices were vandalized or destroyed and six land offices were burnt.
