Terming the USA “godfather of all terrorism,” Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee leader Shahriar Kabir on Wednesday accused the super-power of patronising “pro-Islamist terrorism” all over the world.
“During my research about terrorism and militancy, I came to know about the United States’ green-belt strategy, which aimed at creating a belt of Islamic states around what they considered red belt [of Russia]. The USA devised this strategy soon after the World War II and it eventually gave birth to the present global Islamist terrorism,” he told a discussion in the city.
Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee and Forum for Secular Bangladesh and Trial of War Criminals of 1971 jointly organised the discussion on Jamaat-e-Islami’s terrorist connection at the Sufia Kamal auditorium of National Museum. The discussion was followed by Kabir’s latest documentary “The Ultimate Jihad.”
Executive President of the Committee, which has been campaigning for the trial of war criminals for years, Kabir said the heads of many Muslim-majority countries including Turkey, Egypt and Indonesia had tried to proceed down the path of state secularism many a times in the past. But they could not do it in the face of overt and covert US pressure.
He recalled a recent conversation with several top-level US officials when “they told me that unless the Bangladesh government enlists Jamaat as a terrorist group, the USA cannot take any step in this regard.”
Kabir claimed that the government could not do so because “the US thinks it is a moderate Islamic party.” He described the situation as “paradoxical” but insisted that it was the right time to ban Jamaat and Hefazat-e-Islam.
Convener of Bangladesh History Congress Prof Muntasir Mamun said he would not differ with any of Kabir’s points.
“We are demanding a ban on Jamaat, which is all right. Buy why do not we raise our voice against the wrongdoings of others? Say for Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid; we all know him as an honest man and a progressive person. But he made religious education compulsory up to class X, and we kept mum,” he said.
“The Awami League will never ban Jamaat as long as they stay in power. They will not take political liability of banning a political party,” Mamun said categorically.
Posing a string of questions, he said: “And is it true that banning Jamaat will solve all the problems? We are talking about banning Jamaat, but not anything against barrister Moudud or even Khaleda Zia.
Is it because they wear shirts, pants and saris instead of wearing Panjabi and Pyjamas? Why do not we speak against the media when they are trying to gather mass support in favour of caretaker government? And why do not we talk about the shrinking Ganajagaran Mancha?”
State Minister for social welfare ministry Promod Mankin, retired judge Golam Rabbani and Ganajagaran Mancha spokesperson Imran H Sarkar also spoke at the function.
