Author: Hena Khan
Publication: Outlook
Date: June 21, 2004
URL: http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20040621&fname=Bangladesh&sid=1
He is Bangladesh's Mullah Omar,
intolerant, fanatical and, yes, charismatic. Like the erstwhile Taliban
supremo, his avowed goal is to establish a society based on the Islamic
model laid out in the Quran and the Hadith (tradition) of Prophet Mohammad.
Quite worryingly, he isn't averse to killing his opponents in cold blood.
That's Siddiqul Islam aka Bangla Bhai, leader of the Jagroto Muslim Janata
Bangladesh (JMJB), who thrust himself into the country's popular consciousness-and
in media headlines-through the grisly torture and killing of eight members
of the banned Leftist group, Sarbahara (Have-Nots) Party, over the past
few months.
The emergence of Bangla Bhai underlines
the concerted challenge a clutch of Islamic militant groups pose to Bangladesh's
reputation as a "moderate Muslim country". Prime Minister Khaleda Zia was
alarmed enough to issue orders of arrest against the Mullah Omar clone.
But the nation's woes have continued to mount. A bomb explosion at the
holy shrine of Hazrat Shah Jalai in Sylhet in May killed four people and
injured Bangladesh-born British high commissioner Anwar Choudhury and 80
others. In April, a huge cache of sophisticated arms was seized in raids
on two militant hideouts at Satikthhari village, Chittagong district. Add
to these the intermittent threats the militant outfits have been issuing
against the minority Ahmadiya sect countrywide and the picture you have
is of impoverished Bangladesh struggling to keep at bay the radical Islamism
nibbling at its soul.
No wonder, Christina Rocca, the
US assistant secretary of state for South Asia, flew into Dhaka last month,
much to the chagrin of the Zia government. Rocca met the leaders of the
beleaguered 1,00,000-strong Ahmadiya community and told reporters, "This
country (Bangladesh) has a long tradition as a moderate and tolerant place....
The problems faced by the Ahmadiya sect have made us concerned because
it looks like if things might be getting off tract a little."
About her visit, a western diplomat
said, "Rocca's visit was different from her earlier visits, as things are
changing in Bangladesh. It is the first alert buzz of that fact." Dhaka,
however, reiterated that these were stray incidents, and that it would
tackle such militant groups with a tough hand. But Rocca's statement did
embarrass the four-party alliance government, which includes religious
parties like the Jamaat-e- Islami and the Islami Oikkya Jote.
And now it is the turn of the Indian
government to ring alarm bells. Opposition leader Sheikh Hasina raised
the issue of Islamic militancy with Veena Sikri, the Indian high commissioner
in Dhaka. Sikri did not express her own views but a source in the Indian
high commission told Outlook, "Obviously, security matters in Bangladesh
concern India as a neighbouring country." Especially the cache of sophisticated
weapons found in Chittagong. Says the source, "We have asked during border
talks and at other levels about the origins of weapons and their destination.
Such cache of weapons could land in the hands of separatist elements in
India. We are constantly monitoring these developments."
The growing strength of militant
groups and their attempts to push Bangladesh to rightwing extremism is
a worry for India because of its recent history. Islamic radicals and their
slogans of jehad have created havoc on India's northern borders.
New Delhi wouldn't want a new flank
to open in the east, already riven by secessionism.
The disquiet in foreign missions
is also because of the general perception, often articulated in the media
here, about the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami's links to the militants
groups, some of which are in turn purportedly linked to Osama bin Laden's
Al Qaeda. Jamaat secretary-general and social welfare minister Ali Ahsan
Mujaheed has a tame defence: "It is unfair to implicate Jamaat in the activities
of Bangla Bhai, Mujahideen, Harkatul Jehad or other groups.Our party preaches
Islam to rear honest people."
As foreign missions anxiously keep
an eye on bloody militant activities, the nation is in thrall of Bangla
Bhai. Who is he? What's his organisation, JMJB, all about? In his mid-40s,
black-bearded and turbaned, he hails from the northwestern Bogra district
and was initially a member of the Jamaat. "My actual name is Siddiqul Islam,
and I do not have any other names which appear in the media. It's my journalist-friends
who created the confusion," he once said in response to queries as to why
he was called Bangla Bhai. Siddiqul apparently earned that sobriquet because
he used to teach Bengali in a Dhaka school. He also claims to have studied
in Dhaka University.
In 1998, Bangla Bhai quit the Jamaat
in protest against its decision to accept the woman leadership of Bangladesh.
"We don't believe in the present political trend," he had then fumed. "We
want to build a society based on the Islamic model laid out in the Holy
Quran and the Hadith." He then joined the JMJB, which could have been operating
under a different nomenclature till then. Bangla Bhai worked underground
for six years and rose to become a member of its highest policy- making
body, the Majlis-e-Shura, as also its operations chief.
JMJB's principal goal is to turn
Bangladesh into a Taliban-like state. But its spiritual leader Maulana
Abdur Rahman claims the JMJB is involved in social welfare activities.
Maulana Rahman, like Bangla Bhai, was also a member of the Jamaat and,
incidentally, collaborated with the Pakistani army during Bangladesh's
1971 India-backed liberation war.
The JMJB is believed to have 10,000
militants operating in at least 17 Bangladeshi districts. The organisation
is well structured: its top tier is called Ehsar which comprises full-time
members working on orders of the leadership; its second tier is Gayeri
Ehsar, which consists of 1,00,000 part-time activists; at the bottom are
those who work for the organisation indirectly. Its principal sources of
funding are disguised business including cold storage and shrimp cultivation.
Last month, Dhaka-based newspaper
The Daily Star claimed it had obtained video discs, including one chillingly
titled, The Solution, The Preparation. These videos shown to JMJB recruits
contained visuals of training imparted at the erstwhile al-Farooq training
camp in Afghanistan. The newspaper quoted JMJB sources as saying that 20
of their comrades who had worked with bin Laden were now assisting Bangla
Bhai.
Bangla Bhai shot into notoriety
because of killings and tortures allegedly carried out at his behest. The
most grisly of these occurred in Bamongram village, Naogaon district, last
month. JMJB activists nabbed three Sarbahara Party activists and tortured
them, their chilling screams transmitted over the microphone across the
village. The following morning the villagers woke up to find the body of
a man, labelled as a Sarbahara Party member, hanging upside down from a
tree. Another mutilated body was found at a temporary camp of the JMJB.
JMJB men deny their role in the
grisly killings, claiming the villagers acted against the Sarbahara Party
because of its propensity to extort money from people. But there are no
takers for these explanations.The police, in fact, claim the victims were
innocent villagers and not associated with the banned Leftist outfits.
Wherever Bangla Bhai and his men
go, the people live in complete terror.Like in Vittigram village in Naogaon,
for instance. Here the JMJB members would pick up pretty girls and confine
them in Siddiqia Fazil Madrassa, where they would be allegedly raped. Normalcy
returned to the village only after JMJB moved out to other pastures to
preach their own version of Islamic society.
That Bangla Bhai earned his spurs
in the Jamaat has embarrassed the government deeply.But Jamaat chief has
his own spin, "There may be a move nationally or internationally to rear
some adventurers or splinter groups to check Islamic uprising." Or, the
Jamaat cadres are deliberately being groomed to give Islamic ideology a
bad name. Either way, as in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bangladesh too may
have to pay a heavy price for flirting with the fundamentalists.
