The overnight rise of the fundamentalist Islamist organisation Hefazat-e-Islam is a frightening tale.
The outfit’s fanatic face became clear after it staged atrocities in the capital on May 5 last year during a rally that was organised to press home its 13-point demands.
The Qawmi madrasa-based outfit was launched on January 10, 2010, to oppose the education policy and amendments brought to the constitution to give it back its original 1972 outlook.
However, the little know group till then announced its presence loudly by staging a major rally on April 6 last year at the Shapla Chattar in Motijheel, the capital’s commercial hub.
It grabbed a lot of spotlight then by not only mobilising a huge number Qawmi madrasa students to the capital city, but also by the way its supporters behaved like fanatics, attacking many male and female journalists.
The Hefazat men intimidated and brutally beat up a number of female journalists because they believed that women should stay at home and wear burqa (Islamic veil) if they come out.
Nadia Sharmeen, a female television journalist who was assigned to cover Hefazat’s April rally, described to this correspondent how Hefazat men harassed her.
“You are a woman; why are you here? Get out of here right now!” – That was what one of the Hefazat fanatics told her while assaulting. Another one told her,
“Do not you know about our 13-point demands? Why are you here, being a woman? Just get out of here!” she was told.
From that rally, the Chittagong-based outfit declared its 13-point demands that included banning all “foreign culture” such as free mixing of men and women and candlelight vigils, and bar on erecting sculptures at intersections, colleges and universities across the country, and so on.
Hefazat leaders asked the government to implement their demands, which constitution experts, social scientists, human rights activists, women rights defenders and civil society leaders believed was against the spirit of the constitution and the fundamentals of the state and society.
Hefazat’s demands became an issue of concern making everyone wonder how a group of fanatics had been rising beyond the purview of the mainstream society with an aim to take the country back to the dark ages.
The Hefazat men, who had been working with an aim to realise the 13-point demands, did not only beat up Nadia. In an interview with this correspondent, she said: “I was beaten up by the attackers five to six times. The attackers also tore my shirt and tried to rip everything on my body apart.”
Jakia Ahmed was another female journalist harassed by Hefazat men on the same day. She was told by one of the attackers that: “Why do women come out? How dare she not only comes out of the house, but also do journalism?”
When women are considered as equal development partners not just in the country but only across the world, Hefazat wants them to remain in cache.
In his sermons, Hefazat chief Shah Ahmed Shafi has been heard several times speaking against women’s freedom, education and employment.
“Women should take care of furniture, bring up children and stay within the confines of their homes,” Shafi said in one of his sermons.
This Dhaka Tribune correspondent has found out that many Hefazat leaders not only played role in the founding of banned Islamist outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (Huji-B), but also campaigned for establishing Taliban-styled state in Bangladesh.
In the late 1990s, terrorist organisation Taliban grabbed state power in Afghanistan and took the country into a dark age. Many leaders of Hefazat have been in Afghanistan in the past where they fought alongside the local militants in favour of the Taliban’s cause.
One of them was Maulana Habibur Rahman, a key organiser of the May 5 Hefazat rally. He campaigned to establish Taliban-styled rule in Bangladesh. He said: “Only the establishment of a Khilafat [pan-Islamic movement]-based state following the Taliban ideology can change the lot of the nation.” These are only a few of many such examples that plunged the country’s people into a state of panic.
Hefazat men destroyed trees on the road, demolished concrete dividers, torched and vandalised vehicles, public and private offices, banks and attacked police on May 5.
It is often said that many political quarters of the country extended their explicit and implicit support, propelling the fanatic group to give rise to the unprecedented atrocities.
