Opposition Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir formed huge brigades of infantry comprising children, teenagers and their mothers in Satkhira district, cashing in their loyalty to Islam, to fight against law enforcers and pro-government activists.
The action groups work as human shield for the Jamaat-Shibir activists who confront the law enforcers on the streets during violent demonstrations and also when the police or the joint forces conduct drives to nab those responsible for such violence.
The infantry of ordinary village people, mostly not educated enough to try rumour against logic, took bullets as they continued to unleash a reign of terror across the district, situated in the south-western part of the country along Indian border. The district remained virtually seized by the Jamaat-Shibir men since the execution of Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla on December 12.
In the last 10 months, several groups of Jamaat-Shibir cadres allegedly killed over three dozens of people including 16 Awami League activists in Satkhira. The incidents have taken place mainly after February 28, when another Jamaat leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War, according to newspaper reports.
The victims were slaughtered, hacked and beaten to death in broad daylight, in the middle of local marketplaces or anytime they had chosen for having the job done.
About a dozen of the killings took place only in December in Kolaroa, Devhata, Kaliganj and sadar areas.
Jamaat-Shibir dominates the ideology of the people through a well-planned network of activities, executed by involving mainly the mosques, madrasas, and orphanages.
These findings were made through interviews of Jamaat-Shibir supporters, victims of their crimes and eye witnesses.
The situation in Satkhira has been so dreadful that even the police cannot go to many areas to quell violence or arrest the accused. On more than one occasion, the joint forces had to retreat in the face of obstacles put up by felling trees on the roads.
“They cut ‘Islam’ off the name of ‘Nazrul Islam College,’ making it simply ‘Nazrul College.’ They likewise want to kill Islam in this country,” this reporter heard as the motorcycle he was riding drove past Sarashkathi’s Bamonkhali Government School around 3pm on December 26.
A makeshift roadside tea stall was set up there to keep playing all day long the recorded “religious sermons” of Sayedee.
It shows the extent to which the Jamaat-Shibir is able to operate in the district with its propaganda campaigns imbued with anti-independence teachings.
Jamaat, which is responsible for siding with the Pakistani occupation forces and committing crimes in 1971, treats the freedom fighters as “enemies of Islam.” The Jamaat had advocated for a unified Islamist Pakistan and formed collaborators’ groups including para militia al-Badr.
As the war crimes trial began four decades after the independence in 2010, the Jamaat picked Satkhira, considering its historical stronghold, for staging massive violence to give an impression that a large part of the countrymen were against the trial.
How the party was preparing since the trial began could be assessed from the words of Mujibor Sarder. He is the father of Deyara union’s ward seven Swechchhasebak League General Secretary Rabiul Islam, who was hacked to death on November 26.
According to Mujibor, the Jamaat-Shibir activists made the village women taking oath with the Qur’an to work for the “protection of Islam.” And the process of motivating them had been done through the party’s women activists during the weekly meetings, known as “Talim” or “Boithak.”
“Even the women whose husbands are involved with the Awami League politics were motivated through these meetings. And they do not prefer sharing with their husbands what is discussed in those meetings,” said Mujibor.
Many women who this reporter spoke to throughout the trip admitted to have attended the Jamaat meetings regularly.
“We sought Allah’s blessings for saving the life of Sayedee, an innocent man made to bear responsibility for the crimes he did not commit,” said one of the women, preferring not to be named.
It has been proved at the International Crimes Tribunal that Sayedee had changed his name from Delu Shikder when he became a popular religious preacher. Eventually he turned a politician. Framing Sayedee for crimes committed by Delu Shikder was one of the main defence arguments. But it was not proved.
Rabiul’s sister-in-law Sharmin divulges more about what was discussed in those meetings. “If we die for establishing Islam, we will be entitled to go to heaven. The hells are only for the Awami League men,” she said.
The women have also been trained to move stealthily while carrying machetes during attacks on the “enemies of Islam.”
Rabiul was hacked with a machete in the afternoon of November 26 at Deyara Bazar in Kolaroa upazila. The Jamaat-Shibir activists were allegedly carrying 100 machetes, locally known as Ramda, on that day, said Abdul Motaleb, another villager. He claimed that the machetes had been kept in the house of a member of Deyara Union Parishad.
Investigations reveal that the machetes were made with money realised from local workers of a 2012-project who had built an embankment to protect the area against inundation during floods. Some locals collected the money and gave it to the Deyara UP chairman, Ibrahim Hossain, who charged Tk500 for each of those workers.
Deyara unit Jubo League President Quddus Hossain himself collected Tk500 from each of the 30 workers who were under his supervision. He alleged that with the fund, the chairman had made some 100 machetes, each costing not less than Tk1,500.
The Jamaat men motivated the adult male population mainly by using mosques and local gathering places where fake information and rumour about their leaders were spread. The Imams described Sayedee and Quader Molla as “messengers of God” falling victims to politics for campaigning the “principles of Islam.”
Special doa was also offered, especially after every Jum’a prayers, to save these “messengers.”
“I myself heard once during a Jum’a prayer when Allah’s blessings were sought for saving the lives of ‘protectors of Islam,’” said a BGB personnel at the Hizalti border outpost in Chandanpur.