rising Islamist fundamentalism and the terror associated with it had taken a back seat in the country after he assumed office.
Ironically, the next day his police arrested four members of the banned Harkat-ul-Jihad outfit from a hotel in Jessore. Listed below are some other developments over the last six months that attracted headlines in Bangladeshi press.
On February 28, Daily Star, the leading newspaper of Bangladesh, reported that the dormitories of Dhaka Polytechnic Institute in the capital's Tejgaon area have turned into a safe haven for fugitive criminals and militants. They are being provided shelter by the Islamic Chhatra Shibir, a militant student wing. Several teachers with Jamaat background and alleged links with the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI-B) were also involved in dubious activities.
On March 5 the United States State Department labelled HuJI-B as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO). The outfit was previously put on the list of 'Other Terrorist Organisations' in 2003 by the U.S. A press release to this effect by the State Department said, 'The leader of HuJI-B signed the February 1998 fatwa sponsored by Osama bin Ladin (sic) that declared American civilians to be legitimate targets for attack. Since then, HuJI-B has been implicated in a number of terrorist attacks in Bangladesh and abroad.' Signed by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Executive Order 13224 criminalises providing material support to HuJI-B by American citizens or people living under U.S. jurisdictions and freezes all HuJI-B property and interests in the U.S. and in areas under U.S. jurisdiction. The designation also enabled the U.S. to deny visas to HuJI-B representatives and requires American financial institutions to freeze assets held by the terror outfit.
On April 9 the British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said there was a terrorist linkage between Bangladesh and the United Kingdom. She told reporters at the residence of the British High Commissioner in Dhaka, 'There is a potential linkage between terrorists in Britain and terrorists in Bangladesh and we have shared interest and endeavour to tackle it through both short and long-term measures.'
The same day India-Bangladesh Border Coordination Conference began at the Border Security Force (BSF) headquarters in New Delhi where the Indian side handed a revised list of 117 militant hideouts on Bangladeshi soil. A list of 141 hideouts of Indian insurgent groups living in Bangladeshi territory was given to Dhaka officials during the previous round of talks in October 2007.
On April 16 the Indian Government confirmed that the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) leaders are carrying on business activities in Bangladesh. The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Radhika V Selvi, informed Rajya Sabha (upper House of Indian Parliament) that inputs suggest ULFA has been using Bangladesh territory to procure and smuggle arms and explosives into India. The minister was replying to a question on whether ULFA commanders have a vast network running into seven hotels and six nursing homes, besides procuring weapons through the port city of Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh.
On June 11 the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) released its '2007-2008 Trends in Militancy in Bangladesh' report. It said that the right-wing militants have regrouped across the country over the past year, putting together their networks and strengthening training and indoctrination operations despite a lull in terrorist attacks in the same period. It said the reports of bomb explosions and bomb-making cells indicate that militant groups are once again organising themselves for terrorist attacks. According to the report, the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) militants have regrouped and launched recruitment drives. They are reportedly holding public meetings, raising funds and running recruitment drives in various parts of the country.
Significantly, on this very day the Daily Star reported that the country's president had promulgated the Anti-Terrorism Ordinance 2008, which provides death penalty for offences like terror financing and staging murder to create panic and jeopardise country's sovereignty. The ordinance came into effect through a gazette notification and provides for the constitution of special tribunals to deal with such offences, which are non-bailable. The ordinance also empowers Bangladesh Bank to freeze account of a suspected terror outfit and give directions to banks concerned to take preventive measures against monetary transactions for financing terrorist acts. The time frame for resolving a case in anti-terrorist offence has been fixed for six months after framing of charges.
If anything, these examples make one thing clear: elements promoting militancy and terrorism in Bangladesh may be down, but they are not out. To the credit of the interim administration it can be said that it has effectively confronted the elements of Islamist militancy that grew in the country under active political patronage of the preceding regimes, particularly that of Begum Khaleda Zia. Ahmed's administration has successfully targeted the vast network of JMB and its affiliate, the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), a task that appeared to have been deliberately left unfinished by Khaleda's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led regime.
The execution of top JMB-JMJB leadership on April 30, 2007 was the high point of the government's measures against Islamist radicalism. In the early hours on that day, the outfit's chief Abdur Rahman and second-in-command, Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai, Majlish-e-Shura (the highest decision-making body) members Abdul Awal, Khaled Saifullah and Ataur Rahman Sunny, and suicide squad member Iftekhar Hasan Al-Mamun, were hanged in different prisons. These elements had catapulted a small gang of Islamists to a point where it had dared to coordinate and execute simultaneous nationwide series of bombings in August 2005 in 63 of the country's 64 districts, and to openly flaunt its nexus with Al Qaeda.
Since the execution of JMB leaders, over a hundred of the outfit's cadres, mostly lower-rung activists, have been arrested from various parts of the country. While international pressure and the shock of 2005 serial bombings had forced the erstwhile BNP regime to initiate action against the JMB-JMJB combine, the HuJI-B, another notorious outfit, remained outside the scope of official action. Except for the October 1, 2005 arrest of its 'operations commander' Mufti Abdul Hannan, none of HuJI-B's functionaries were apprehended by the law-enforcement agencies. It is useful to point out that HuJI-B has been involved in a number of recent terrorist attacks in India and has deep linkages with terrorist groups based in Pakistan, including Al Qaeda. Towards the end of 2007, however, the interim government appeared to have initiated some action against this group as well.
HuJI-B, which unveiled itself in Dhaka in a public appearance in 1992, had enjoyed the patronage of BNP regime, in which the pro-Pakistani Jamat Party (JEI) was a coalition partner. It systematically targeted political opponents from Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League and those perceived to be advocating closer ties with India. HuJI-B not only had strong links with its mother body in Pakistan and the ISI, but also allegedly with the Bangladesh's intelligence agency, Directorate General of Forces. With such vital support, it graduated to political activity demanding imposition of Shariat law, Islamic government, Arabic as the main official language and abolition of present law and courts system among other things.
All these years the extremists in Bangladesh were drawing their strength not only from Pakistan and Al Qaeda but also from charitable organisations in western countries. There have been several such charities including International Islamic Relief Organisation, Wafa Humanitarian Organisation, Rabita Trusts, Qatar Charitable Society, Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLFRD) and Al-Aqsa Educational Fund. All of them have alleged links with terrorist organisations in different countries. All of these, except HLFRD and Al-Aqsa, have links with Al Qaeda, which also supports HuJI-B. There are now enough reports that reveal a connection between the 'Muslim Aid Bangladesh' (a registered NGO with Bangladesh government) and terrorist funding in the country. Essentially, Muslim Aid Bangladesh is the branch of Muslim Aid, a prominent aid agency in Britain. The Muslim Aid's goal is to collect zakat, which is a religious obligation cast upon Muslims to give part of their earnings for charity. However Muslim Aid has been accused of spending this money to fuel extremism and terrorism in different parts of the world.
It is this fear that the British Home Secretary had pointed out in Dhaka in April. The new anti-terrorist ordinance that the interim government has promulgated is supposed to confront this fear as well. It remains to be seen what exactly the results are going to be.
Finally, there is the Indian factor. Bangladesh cannot remain free from terrorism and other extremist activities as long as it ignores India's concerns and allows anti-India activities from its soil. Despite assertions by India's BSF, which is backed by concrete evidence, Bangladesh is not willing to concede that it is hosting militants having inimical designs against India. Bangladesh does not accept that any militant camps are functioning on its territory. A TV channel's recent footage of rebels belonging to the secessionist National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) undergoing training in Bangladesh would have embarrassed Dhaka greatly. Similarly, a Guwahati-based website quoted NDFB 'commander' Ranjan Daimary welcoming and exhorting trained cadets in Bangladesh that their real task would start with the end of their training.
Obviously, Bangladesh has a lot to do in assuaging India's concerns. The serial bomb blasts on two consecutive days, July 25 and 26, in two important Indian cities of Bangalore and Ahmedabad, which together claimed over 50 lives and left scores of people injured, have added gravely to New Delhi's terror concerns.
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