The government plans to carry out motivational programmes in educational institutions to combat religious extremism in the country.
“We will conduct mass awareness programmes at educational institutions and religious centres to combat extremism,” State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters after a meeting of an anti-extremism committee at his ministry yesterday.
The state minister remarked that students of schools, madrasas, colleges and universities were easily influenced by extremist organisations.
Thus, the government has introduced programmes, mostly using audiovisual materials such as short films, at educational institutions to motivate students to shun extremism, Asaduzzaman said.
The mass media would also be used to highlight the negative sides of extremism, while intelligence agencies would remain alert to counter the scourge, he said.
A ministry official who attended the meeting said steps would be taken to amend textbooks to remove any material that might incite extremism.
The meeting also decided to co-opt an official from the finance ministry’s banking division in the committee to trace the sources of funding of extremist groups, the official added.
The 17-member “extremism resistance and elimination committee”was formed in 2009.
The government already banned five organisations, including Jama’atul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji) and Hizb-ut-Tahrir.
Senior home secretary CQK Mustaq Ahmed, Inspector General of Police Hassan Mahmud Khandker and RAB Director General Mokhesur Rahman were also present at yesterday’s meeting, the first to be held during this government’s tenure.
Meanwhile, in replying a question, the state minister said law enforcers had identified the perpetrators behind the snatching of three convicted JMB militants from a prison van in Trishal, Mymensingh in February.
