 |
|
Jamat-i-Islami of Bangladesh and the Regional
Jihadi Networks.
By Shahriar Kabir
Most national dailies of Bangladesh published on May 21, 2004, the
gruesome photographic testimony of brutality of Bangla Bhai, the
self-proclaimed militant fundamentalist, from greater Rajshahi area.
Picture showed dead body of Abdul Qayum Badshah (52) of the Raninagar of
Naogaon district, hanging from the branch of a tree. It has been alleged
that Badshah was a member of Sarbahara Party. The Jihadi outfit, Jagrata
Muslim Janata of Bangladesh (JMJB) brutally killed him and hung his dead
body from a tree to warn the anti-fundamentalists of dire consequences
that anyone opposing them.
Such grisly pictures were familiar during the liberation war of 1971.
The Pakistani army used to kill the Bangladeshi freedom lovers and hung
their dead bodies from the trees. They would at times hung them alive
from the trees upside down and light fires below to roast living human
beings. Alternatively, they skinned them alive while hanging. Again we
saw such pictures in Taliban’s Afghanistan. They killed pro-communist
President Najibullah and hung his dead body publicly in Kabul. This was
to demonstrate to their socialists and communist opponents what
brutality the Mullah Omar’s Taliban were capable of. Now again after
eight years, with Talibanist coalition Government of Bangladesh, we
visited similar pictures of fundamentalist brutality.
Three days after the publication of the vicious picture of hanging dead
body of Badshah an appeal was published in Daily Janakantha,
under the title, “ Aro asankhya gachhe asankhya lash jhule thakar
aggei kichhu karun” (Please act before numerous more trees have
innumerable more dead bodies hanging from them). This appeal was a
letter from Shafiqpur High School’s Head Master Mahmud Musa, a victim
himself, who wrote as follows:
“I am the Head Master of Shafiqpur High School of Rani Nagar
Sub-District, Naogaon District of North Bengal. My home is also in the
same village. In the last fifteen years I built this High School on own
paternal property step by step, with help of education loving public of
the area and public representatives. With persistent personal effort,
and in my small way, thus I had managed propagation of education in the
area. On May 8th last the JMJB cadres attacked
and razed to ground my four roomed inherited paternal living quarters.
This incident was published in various national dailies on May 16th,
2004. On the same day another seventy houses were razed to the ground
including that of another Head Master and an elected chairman. In these
conditions me and other member of my family have taken shelter in near
by town. Before the tragedy of destruction of our ancestral house and
leaving the village could be absorbed, the JMJB cadres abducted my elder
brother (Abdul Qayum Badshah) on Wednesday May 19th.
The next day they killed him after public announcement in the
microphone, all over the area. Later they hung his dead body from a road
side tree in the neighboring Baman village, of Nandigram sub-district,
of Bogra District. Newspaper readers have seen this picture on last May
21st. I heard that these butchers are looking
for me. They will probably kill me with similar brutality and display my
dead body, if they can find me. I am also frequently hearing similar
threats of life to other members of my family. Another brother of ours
has stayed back in the village risking his life, because it is now the
harvesting time. They have once abducted him and after torturing him in
their camp have let him go. Our family has a well- established
reputation in the area. Our family has a tradition of association with
progressive politics and culture. My father and brother both were
established in literature and social work in the area. We were also
trying to perpetuate this tradition to the best of our ability. Probably
that is now considered to be my family’s crime and mine.
The state of Bangladesh has a government and an administration. The
country has a police and an army. This area has an elected MP, who is a
deputy minister. This district also has a responsible minister. There
are many human rights organizations in this country. There is a
civil society. There is a government and an opposition party. I want to
earnestly appeal to all of them and their sense of responsibility and
conscience. I want to let them know that a citizen and an ordinary
teacher is now dangerously threatened and is at high risk of life. Will
you not come to the aid of this teacher, who is a refugee from his own
home with friends and family, due to danger to his life? Will none of
you feel responsible enough to stop this medieval terror? Do these goons
who have destroyed my home and killed my brother perpetrate it in my
fate to continue to see horrors? Those who are not threatened today, how
are they assured that they will not be threatened tomorrow? Who is
giving them this assurance? Their silence today may turn too dangerous
for tomorrow. It may be too late then. I appeal to the government, the
administration and conscientious citizen - “ Please do something”.
And please do it before you observe many more dead bodies dangle from
road side trees.”
The writer of the above letter Mahmud Musa came to see me on 26th
May. He came to inform me about the helplessness of his whole family. I
asked him if his murdered brother was actually connected with the
“Sarbahara Party”. Mahmud Musa said, “May be, but I do not
know.” He stated, “Suppose my brother had done some crime, there is
a government, a police, a judicial court and law. If my brother was
ordered hanged after the judicial procedure – I would have no
complaint. But who is this Bangla Bhai? Is he the court or the
government? By which law has he ordered the execution of my brother?”
I asked Mahmud Musa if there were any pending cases against his brother
with the police. The younger brother of the murdered confirmed that
there were, some. But he claimed them to be all false cases. For example
he said there is a case with date of crime 30/2/2000. Obviously there
was never a 30th February. I asked him, what proof he had
that Bangla Bhai’s JMJB had killed his brother. Musa said they (JMJB)
have themselves announced and the newspapers have carried this in their
report. Bangla Bhai’s 2nd in command Hemayet Hussain Himu,
Jamat Amir (a leading position of Jamat-i-Islami party) of Raninagar
sub-district. Muffajjal Hussain and Jamat’s former worker Abul Master
lead a JMJB armed gang which abducted Badshah and three others. They
have hung the dead body of Badshah on a roadside tree, the other three
are still missing. I asked Mahmud Musa further whether they have filed a
case (FIR) in the police station. He said, “No, not yet.”
Badshah’s family is out of the area due to the militant acts of Bangla
Bhai. He himself is unable to go back to his village. Additionally,
police does not accept complaints against Bangla Bhai.
Police’s refusal to accept complaints against Bangla Bhai is very
normal. It is published in the newspapers that the Police O.C. follows
around as bodyguard of Bangla Bhai, the militant fundamentalist leader.
The district A.S.P., the divisional D.I.G. are also the protectors of
Bangla Bhai, hence in the greater Rajsahi area there is no one with
enough courage to complain against Bangla Bhai. Then he revealed why the
fundamentalists were mad at his family. Their family is a politically
conscious family of the area. Family wise they have been associated with
left movements and he once was a member of left-oriented National Awami
Party of Bangladesh. Badshah and Musa’s father Abdul Kader was a
participant of the Tebhaga movement. Ila Mitra personally knew
Abdul Kader. His grand father Sakim Sardar and great grand father Kasim
Sardar were known to Rabindra Nath Tagore and had hearty relation with
him. Patisar, the famous Tagore Zamindari, skirts Raninagar area. In the
Ahmed Rafiq’s research paper on Tagore there is a description of
Rabindranath’s friendly relations with Kasim Sardar of Raninagar. In
their family they still learn and practice Rabindra Sangeet. They also
have a tradition of reading modern literature. They had family relations
with Ismail Hussain Siraji. The books that police party confiscated from
their house included books by Aroj Ali Matobbar and Ahmad Safa. Musa
said JMJB did not allow this year’s Rabindra Jayanti celebration at
Patisar. They said, “You can’t sing Rabindra Sangeet – you have to
sing Hamd and Naa’t.”
Musa does not know when they will be able to go back to their home,
destroyed by Bangla Bhai. Due to the terrorist activities of militant
Bangla Bhai, hundreds of people have left the area. This has been
admitted by Maolana Abdur Rahman, JMJB’s Amir and spiritual guru of
Bangla Bhai. In an interview with Asaduzzaman Samrat of Ajker Kagoj, Maolana
Rahman explained that in the greater Rajshahi area, in seven
sub-districts, in this task of suppressing ‘the Sarbaharas’ they had
active cooperation of Post and Telecommunication Minister Barrister
Aminul Haq, Housing and PWD Deputy Minister Alamgir Kabir, Land Minister
Ruhul Quddus Talukdar Dulu and member of Parliament Nadim Mustafa. In
Bagmara, where their activities are at the peak, even M.P. Abu Hena is
not opposing their action. They are getting full cooperation of the
administration. He said there is widespread support among ordinary
people of the area. In a short time they have arrested fifty people and
found huge amount of weapons. More than five thousand Sarbahara have
surrendered. (Ajker Kagoj, 13 May, 2004). The atrocities
of Bangla Bhai, under the shelter of two BNP ministers, three MPs and
Police has become so widespread that he has not been bothered by the
arrest warrant ordered by the Prime Minister (before her departure for
China). He is very safely and openly moving around in the area, without
any cover. On May 23rd last Bangla Bhai’s storm troopers
have marched in Rajshahi under police protection and displayed their
arms. They came to the city riding on hundreds of motor cycles and
mini-buses and submitted a memorandum to the administration. The police
officers have congratulated the so-called Jihad of Bangla Bhai against
the Sarbahara group.
The militant activities of Self-styled militant fundamentalist Ajijur
Rahman, aka Siddiqul Islam, aka “Bangla Bhai”’ are being published
in Bangladeshi national daily newspapers again since April 1st
week of this year. In August of last year, militant fundamentalist
organization Jamiatul Mujaheedin (JM)’s members were in the limelight,
when they attacked police to decamp with arms, ammunitions and the
wireless sets. At that time reportage on their activities continued for
about 20/21 days. In January of 1999, militant fundamentalist
organization Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami’s (HUJI) killers were in the
news when they attacked poet Shamsur Rahman at his home. At that time
Dhaka newspapers serially published story of their fundamentalist
militant activities. But the present coverage of Bangla Bhai’s JMJB is
more widely covered. The organization was once secret and after a few
arrests – the reportage subsided. This time however the reportage is
continuing even after eight to nine weeks and will not subside till
fundamentalist militant Bangla Bhai is arrested and JMJB banned.
In 1999 and in 2003 we were stunned and frightened to know the
countrywide militant fundamentalist network of HUJI and JM,
respectively. Like the underground tunnel network of a sly fox the
network of these militant organizations are spread all over the country.
The reason JMJB is getting more reportage is: HUJI and JM are not open
organizations, but JMJB, is. Hadn’t HUJI’s potential killers were
not caught on January 18, 1999 while trying to kill poet Shamshur Rahman,
we would not have known about their presence in Bangladesh. Initially
only three were captured who admitted their association with HUJI.
Later, based on their admission police arrested another forty eight
persons of which one was South African and another Pakistani. All these
facts have been published in various national newspapers.
On 24th January, 1999, Daily Ittefaq had published,
based on an investigative report, that twenty eight other prominent
artists, poets and novelists were on the hit list of HUJI. In a
publication, Afghan Atlas, published from Nebraska University,
USA an important research paper states, “ bin Laden has ISI’s
logistics and intelligence support. HUJI and quite a few of Pakistan’s
militant organizations have connection to bin Laden. HM has connection
with Dhaka based Jihadi Islami, the organization whose assignment is to
recruit Bangladeshi and Indian Muslims to fight in Kashmir.” At
that time the Pakistani citizen Mohammad Sajjid and South African Ahmed
Sadeq Ahmed had admitted to police that bin Laden had given them two
crore Taka ( more than 300,000 US dollars) to build a Taliban-style
militant group in Bangladesh. This money they had spent via 821
madrassas. (Reuters, Jan 28, 1999).
In spite of such concrete proof, police submitted such weak charge
sheet, that the superior court criticized police for weak charge sheet.
It has been seen in the last seven years that whether it is JM or HUJI
– police arrested them when there is hue and cry in the newspapers –
later they submitted such weak charge sheets that criminals were let go
or released on bail. There is never any problem for them to get out of
the jail. Last year the militant cadre of JM, who were arrested red
handed with arms and seditious pamphlets, they had no problem to get out
of jail on April 2nd of this year. The present Inspector
General of Police has been alleged to be a collaborator of the genocidal
Pakistani army of 1971 and the current Home Secretary is known to have a
Jamat connection. Thus it can be clearly surmised why to arrest or keep
in custody the militant fundamentalists or to judiciously run the
criminal cases against them is not on cards for the Khaleda-Nizami
government.
Whenever there have been any allegation against any activities of the
militant fundamentalists, immediately the Jamat-i-Islami chief and
Industries Minister of the coalition government Matiur Rahman Nizami
states that Jamat has no relation with militant fundamentalists. On last
24th May he again stated in a news conference, “Jamat does
not have any relation with so called JMJB or Bangla Bhai. Jamat does not
have any relation with Hijbut Tahrir, Hijbut Tawheed, JM or similar
organizations.“ (Janakantha, 25th May 2004). On the
same day at a news conference sponsored by Ekatturer Ghatak Dalal
Nirmul Committee(EGDNC) and South Asia People’s Union Against
Fundamentalism and Communalism, Professor Kabir Choudhury said, “On
January of this year in Sylhet, at Hazrat Shah Jalal’s Mazar, there
was bombing and five persons were killed. In February, the powerful
voice against fundamentalism, Professor Humayun Azad was attacked with
machete and he survived narrowly. Again on May 21, at the same Mazar of
Hazrat Shah Jalal, an attempt was made on life of the newly appointed
British High Commissioner to Bangladesh. In this attack another three
persons were killed and nearly hundred were injured. Even though the
British High Commissioner survived the attempt on his life, he is still
in the hospital. Even though the investigative reporters of
Bangladesh’s national dailies found a member of the coalition
Jamat-i-Islami responsible for the terrorist act, the coalition
government, in an attempt to protect Jamat, has taken no action.”
The U.S. Asst. Secretary of State Christina Rocca expressed displeasure
about the activities of Bangla Bhai, during her 3 day visit to
Bangladesh , on May 18th , last. She asked Jamat leader
Matiur Nizami about Bangla Bhai’s whereabout. (Janakantha, 20th
May 2004). Obviously, before coming to Bangladesh she must have done her
homework on the related information and documents of proof in this
regard. If Bangla Bhai did not have any relation with Jamat, Ms. Rocca
would not have asked Nizami about this issue, since the issue is not
about his Industries Ministry, but his party Jamat-i-Islami. No one else
is expected to know better than Nizami in this regard. The chief
of Jamat is an influential member of the present cabinet. Thus there is
no possibility asking Nizami under arrest and oath about his party’s
relation to JMJB, Jamiatul Mujaheedin or other militant organizations of
Bangladesh. If such hypothetical scenario ever happens, the close links
between Nizami’s Jamat-i-Islami and the Islamic extremist
organizations would have been divulged in a second.
In August of last year, JM militants had a clash with police and a few
were arrested, Jamat as usual said they had no connection with Jamat.
Again on May 20th of this year, Nizami repeated the same
story to Ms. Rocca. But in last August all Bangladeshi newspapers had
published reports about relation between Jamat and Jamiatul Mujaheedin.
When police raided the house of Montajurul Islam, the chief accused of
Khetlal militant attack, the documents they found not only had distinct
proof of Jamat connection to JM but also to al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Also in August of 2003, three books written by Maolana Masud Azhar were
found in the Jamiatul Mujaheedin office in Jaipurhat. Pakistan based
Jaish-e Muhammad‘s commander Masud Azhar’s name flashed across the
newspaper headlines in the sub-continent in December of 1999, when
Indian Airlines flight number IC 414 was hijacked. The Islamic
extremists hijacked the passenger plane to Afghanistan with a primary
demand to release the militant leader Masud Azhar. The Indian government
was forced to release him to meet the demand of the hijackers. When he
was arrested in India he had submitted in his deposition the following
facts: He was born in Bhawalpur in Pakistan on July 10th,
1968. His father was a Deobandi type strict religious person. He
joined Harkatul Mujaheedin(HM) during his student days and went to
Afghanistan as a Jihadi per instruction of the organizational head
Maolana Fajlur Rahman Khalil. In 1993 catching an Air Emirate flight he
flew in to Dhaka, Bangladesh accompanied by Sajjad Afghani. Then he went
to Karachi but Sajjad Afghani went to India. In January 1998 he again
came to Bangladesh, on a Portuguese passport, to enter India. On January
29th he boarded a Bangladesh Biman flight to New Delhi. In
February, on his way from Delhi to Srinagar he was arrested. (www.stratmag.com/issue2nov-15/kargil.html)
At the time of Khetlal terrorist attack, Jamat declared, that the
principal accused Montajurul Islam was expelled from their party two
years earlier. But according to published newspaper reports Montajurul
had applied for becoming Roqan (Jamat-i-Islami’s senior
hierarchical position) of the Jamat and these papers were found by the
police. While Police is not admitting publicly to the news reporters any
connection between Jamat and JM, they admit that diaries found in the
terrorist hideouts provide full list of workers and leaders of Jamat and
Shibir.
“…The following were also
found during search there:
Election leaflets of
Abbas Ali Khan, ex-Amir of Jamat.
An application for
monetary help from Sirajul Islam, a local Beniapara madrassa student
to the Jamat funding organization Baitul Maa’l.
A Baniapara Ahmedia
Madrassa receipt book for donations received.
A copy of Dhaka’s
Bengali daily Bhrorer Kagoj dated February 13, 1995. The
newspaper had the head lines in Bengali: “Rajshahi University
declared closed – two dead in Chhatradal- Shibir clash – more than
150 injured. “
After militant-police
confrontation, police informed that in the hideout they also found:
Many books and
publications belonging to Jamat and Shibir.
Monogrammed diaries
of many Shibir activists.
The recent full day’s investigation has yielded that the building
where the militants had congregated for training was owned by Jamiatul
Mujaheedin leader Montajurul Islam. In the concerned area processions
were taken out under the leadership of Montajurul, more than a months
before the January 20, 2003 brutal murder of five persons in the Pir
place of Begunbari sub-district. He had openly declared in these rallies
that they would oppose and annihilate any anti-Islamic activity in the
area, soon after which the brutal murders were conducted. The absconding
militant leader, was seen in the open, hobnobbing with the Jamat leaders
and was also actively building armed JM organization. Many sources in
the area inform that he regularly trained more than 100 persons military
and guerrilla tactics and warfare, in his private compound.
Additionally, a letters have been found which clearly establishes Jamat
and Jamiatul Mujaheedin connections. In this letter district Jamat
secretary Abdul Matin Sardar had given Montajurul Islam significant
number of organizational directives. (see Bhorer Kagaj, 2oth Aug,
2003). In all Dhaka newspapers including prestigious “Daily
Star”, “Prothom Alo” and “Janakantha”, in their
investigative reports have stated that the Bangla Bhai’s, JMJB is the
open manifestation of banned organization JM.
It has been noticed that whenever the government is under pressure from
donor nations they ban the fundamentalist organizations and arrest some
of their operatives. Then soon after the banned organizations and
operatives resurface under a different name, with the same activities.
The jailed activists are soon released, as usual. The jailed militants
came out of prison on April 2nd, 2004. The same day’s Janakantha
carried the news that in Rajshahi, under police protection, the
militants attacked and mercilessly butchered a person named Babu, who
was allegedly a Sarbahara activist. They shouted slogans like,
” Nara e Takbir, Alla ho Akbar.” Since then for the next eight
weeks, the news of Bangla Bhai’s of JMJB has been reported in Bengali
media with clear reference of the organization’s link with Jamat and
Afghan Taleban. The brother of Badshah,(the Hanging dead body of May
21), Mr. Mahmud Musa informed that Jamat’s Raninagar Amir, Mufajjal
Hussain was in the team of Badshah’s abductors.
In the long sixty three years of Jamat-i-Islami’s history, there is no
example of any of their leaders ever accepting the blame/responsibility
for any of their misdeeds. In 1953 Jamat’s Chief Maududi was charged
with murder of thirty thousand innocent Ahmadiya in Pakistan’s Lahore,
after a riot in which that many had lost their lives. Maududi was
prosecuted, proven guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Yet until
today, Jamat has not acknowledged that they were responsible for the
massacre of innocents. During the Bangladesh’s war of independence,
Jamat-i-Islami’s militant wings like Razakar, Al Badr and Al Shams
were formed simply to assist Pakistan army’s perpetration of genocide,
which they did in the name of protection of Islam. They tortured and
murdered the freedom fighters and intellectuals in large numbers, which
were published in their own party paper
“Daily Sangram”.
Now, however, they say that they were not involved in those murders but
Awami League was. I had retorted to this blatant lie in a BBC interview.
I stated that if we had to assume that Nizami or Jamat were not involved
in the preparation of the list of intellectuals till the last days of
1971’s Bangladesh liberation war, then we had to assume that Nizami
was an Awami League activist in 1971. In that context we were supposed
to believe that “Daily Sangram” was the party paper of Awami
League. This is the same daily, which published vivid details of many
massacres by Al Badr of freedom fighters with glowing tributes. And
lastly, Nizami himself wrote many columns to inspire Al Badr cadres to
kill the freedom fighters, in this ignoble newspaper.
There is a commonality of purpose between the Nizamis and the JMJB, JM
and other Islamist fascist outfits. Every one of them has a goal to
establish an “Islamic state” in Bangladesh like the one under the
Taliban in Afghanistan, with a Koran and Shari’a based law. Where is
the difference between Jamat and these militants, in goal and ideal? It
is now quite evident the main pillars of Jamat’s politics are: lies,
deception and slyness. When Matiur Rahman Nizami says that he and Al
Badr have no connection with 1971’s mass murder of the Bangladeshi
intellectuals, or Bangla Bhai or Montajurul have no connection with
Jamat – the lies became very glaring and self-evident. If every thing
is false then why does police look for Shibir activists after the bomb
attack on the British High commissioner, at Shah Jalal’s Mazar in
Sylhet? Why did Christina Rocca ask Nizami, and not others, “What
about the whereabouts of Bangla Bhai?”
According to the psychologists, continuous lying develops into a type of
mental disorder. Nizami is so much overtaken by this disorder that soon
a day may come when Nizami would say, “I have no relation with Jamat”
or may be– “I am not Nizami.” Nizamis may think that the people of
Bangladesh are fools, as they perceived them in 1971. They claimed then
that without Pakistan there would be no trace of Islam in the face of
earth. In 1971, the people of Bangladesh, buried Pakistan, the beloved
land of Nizami and his likes, to create Bangladesh. In 1971 also Jamat
had a two member representation in the cabinet and they jubilantly
performed all the murders and atrocities. They are repeating the story,
now, again. Had any one in March, 1971 envisioned that the burial of
Pakistan and Jamat would have been conducted only nine months later, in
these very banks of Buri Ganga in Dhaka? The Dhaka of 1971 is now a
metropolis. The progeny of the three million martyrs and this old city
are waiting eagerly and are counting the days for the upcoming disaster
of Jamat.
Shahriar Kabir is a writer
and a human rights activist in Bangladesh.
|
|
|
