BNP Chairperson and Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia on Monday claimed that militancy and terrorism had taken the root during the Awami League’s 1996-2001 tenure. However, past records and investigations reveal that it was Khaleda’s first regime when the first terrorist organisation Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, Bangladesh (Huji) was launched openly.
“People know how terrorism and militancy took root during the preceding Awami league regime,” Khaleda told a press conference while revealing her proposal for a non-partisan interim administration to oversee the next elections.
Huji, which is blamed for many terrorist attacks, emerged through an open declaration of its jihad agenda at a press conference at the National Press Club in early 1992. Following this, they even carried out a procession in the city.
Even there are more records how Khaleda’s previous administrations and some of her party’s influential leaders, former ministers and parliament members were widely blamed for patronising and extending their support to Islamist militants spread their network and to carry out several terrorist acts.
Huji got nourished almost unchallenged for years until the Hasina-led Awami League government began chasing them in January 1998 as it made an attack on the late poet Shamsur Rahman.
Later, the extremist group made an assassination attempt on Sheikh Hasina in 2000 by planting bomb in Gopalganj when she was the prime minster. Her government did not succeed to check its advancement until handing over power to a caretaker government in October 2001.
The extremist outfit also carried out several terror attacks during Hasina’s previous (1996-2001) regime that include bomb attack on left-leaning cultural organisation Udichi’s programme in Jessore, Chhayanat’s age-old Bangla new year celebration function at Ramna Batamul in Dhaka and the Communist Party of Bangladesh’s public meeting in Paltan.
In June 2007, police charged Huji chief Mufti Hannan and three accomplices with trying to assassinate Anwar Choudhury, then UK high commissioner to Dhaka, in a grenade attack at Shahjalal Shrine in Sylhet. Around 50 people including the envoy were injured in the attack.
Though the Awami League chief and progressive, secular people and organisations were targeted by the extremist outfit, Khaleda in her speech put the blame on Hasina administration citing those terrorist attacks.
During Khaleda’s regime, Huji carried out grisly grenade attacks to assassinate Hasina on August 21, 2004 when she was addressing a party rally at Bangabandhu Avenue. Hasina, then the opposition leader, narrowly escaped death with an ear injury but 24 party leaders and activists including central leader Ivy Rahman were killed and 300 others were maimed.
However, the then BNP administration cooked a story framing one Joj Mia saying he had admitted to have carried out the grenade attacks.
Later, during the 2007-08 army-backed caretaker regime, a fresh investigation revealed Huji’s involvement in the attacks. That investigation also revealed involvement of former BNP deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu with the attack and also the then government’s administrative support to the terrorists.
In a further investigation, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) revealed involvement of Khaleda’s elder son and BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman, the then premier Khaleda’s political secretary Harris Chowdhury, then state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar and many others from her party, alliance and extended family members.
They have been accused in the August 21 grenade attack cases now under trial.
Some bigwigs from the Khaleda’s past administration, including the then senior- and mid-level army officers who were either in intelligence agencies or involved with the investigation into the militant groups and terrorist attacks, have already gave testimony in the trial court as prosecution witnesses.
Their depositions show how some influential people had ensured safe escape route for Huji leader Maulana Tajuddin, brother of Pintu and a key accused in the case. He was sent to Pakistan and some DGFI officials arranged everything for his safe passage.
The emergence and rise of Islamist outfits Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) also took place during the past regime of Khaleda Zia.
Infamous leader of the two outfits Siddqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai enjoyed enormous support of Khaleda’s administration when he was carrying out criminal and terrorist activities initially in northern Rajshahi region, and later across the country.
The BNP-Jamaat led alliance government which repeatedly denied the presence of JMB and Bangla Bhai later was compelled to take some measures including banning JMB, JMJB and Huji, and started to arrest few leaders of those outfits after JMB’s unprecedented simultaneous bomb attacks across the country on August 17, 2005.
The move of launching crackdown on militants came in the wake of pressure from home and abroad. However, Khaleda on Monday claimed: “Terrorism and militancy during the Awami League regime spilled over during our time.
“But we were able to identify the militants, to ban their organisations and activities, to capture their leaders and to try and prosecute them.”
Though Khaleda claimed credit for her 2001-2006 alliance government in taking steps against militants and their outfits, it is also evident how she herself and her cabinet members, lawmakers and party and alliance leaders strongly denied the existence of militants. They also came down heavily on media that carried out reports on Bangla Bhai and his outfit. The government then said Bangla Bhai had been a “fictitious character,” a “mere creation” of the media.
The then prime minister Khaleda Zia herself, while exchanging views with newspaper editors in August 2004, said there had been no Bangla Bhai.
On March 15, 2005, she told parliament: “It is propaganda against the government and the country. And it [the propaganda] is aimed at causing a rift within the four-party alliance.”
Then member of Khaleda’s cabinet Motiur Rahman Nizami, also ameer (chief) of Jamaat-e-Islami, on July 22, 2004 said: “Bangla Bhai has been created by some newspapers.”
The BNP even expelled its lawmaker Abu Hena for speaking out against extremist activities at a time when the official view was that such extremists did not exist.
USA then also expressed concern over the rise of militancy in Bangladesh.
A US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report of January 31, 2007 said the BNP, by ruling in coalition with Islamist parties – Jamaat and Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ) – demonstrated its willingness to work with radical Islamists. It said radical Huji had ties with both al-Qaeda and the IOJ. The report also mentioned: “Jamaat is thought to have had ties with fundamentalist leader Bangla Bhai.” The report was released by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks on February 2, 2009.
Two senior members of the IOJ were reportedly connected with the re-emergence of Huji under the name “Conscious Islamic People.” The political wing of Huji may seek to enter politics under the name Islami Gono Andolon, the CRS report said.
It referred to Selig Harrison, a prominent South Asia analyst, who noted in early August 2006 that a growing Islamic fundamentalist movement “linked to al-Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence agencies is steadily converting the strategically located nation of Bangladesh into a new regional hub for terrorist operations that reach into India and Southeast Asia.”
The US Department of State Country Reports on Terrorism, released in April 2006, also observed that Bangladesh experienced an increase in terrorist activities.
Khaleda at the press conference said: “We were able to destroy the militant networks by concerted efforts. To tackle this menace, we created elite force Rab which earned widespread success and fame.”
Rab, formed in March 2004, played the leading role during Khaleda’s rule to investigate into the militant issue and arrest the militants but only after August 2005.
A former Rab official Maj Atiqur Rahman served as deputy director (interrogation) of the intelligence wing at Rab headquarters from October 2004 to June 2009. He led the Rab team that arrested Huji leader Mufti Hannan on October 1, 2005. Hannan is an accused in August 21 grenade attack case.
Atiqur in his statement in the case said he had come to know during the BNP regime that Mufti Hannan disclosed significant information that the perpetrators had a meeting with Babar and Tarique at Hawa Bhaban at the planning stage of the August 21, 2004 attack.
Babar and Tarique had promised to provide security and administrative help to those who would carry out the blasts at the time of the attack, said Maj Atiqur in his statement.
