On December 18,
2014, the International Crimes Tribunal-2 (ICT-2) indicted Forkan
Mallik, an alleged Razakar (a paramilitary force organized
by the Pakistan Army) commander from Mirzaganj sub-District in
Patuakhali District, for his involvement in crimes against humanity
during the Liberation War of 1971. The tribunal framed five
charges against Forkan, a supporter of the
main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
On November 24,
2014, ICT-1 awarded the death
penalty to Mobarak Hossain aka Mobarak
Ali (64), former rukon (union member) of the Jamaat-e-Islami
(JeI) and commander of the Razakar force. Mobarak was indicted
on April 23, 2013, on five specific incidents of murder, abduction,
confinement, torture and loot.
On November 13,
2014, ICT-1 sentenced Zahid Hossain Khokon alias Khokon
(70), vice-president of BNP's Nagarkanda unit and a Razakar commander
of Faridpur District, to death
in absentia. Khokon was indicted on October 9, 2013, on 11 charges,
including genocide, torture, abduction and confinement during
the Liberation War. He is absconding and, while Bangladeshi authorities
say they have no information regarding his whereabouts, reports
suggest that he may be residing in Sweden with his elder son and
daughter.
The War Crimes
(WC) Trials began on March 25, 2010, and through 2014, the two
ICTs indicted nine persons and delivered four verdicts. Thus far,
the ICTs have indicted 25 leaders, including 13 from JeI, five
from Muslim League (ML), four from BNP, two from Jatiya Party
(JP) and one Nizam-e-Islami leader. Verdicts against 14 of them
have already been delivered – 12 were awarded death sentence while
the remaining two received life sentences. One of the 12 who received
the death sentence has already been executed, while the remaining
11 death penalties are yet to be executed. The two persons who
were awarded life sentences have already died serving their sentence.
They were JeI Ameer (Chief) Ghulam Azam (91), who died
on October 23, 2014; and former BNP minister Abdul Alim (83),
who died on August 30, 2014.
Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s
Awami League (AL)-led Government, which retained power winning
the 10th General
Elections held on January 5, 2014 in the face
of a comprehensive Opposition boycott, has enormously consolidated
its secular commitments and kept its promise to punish the perpetrators
of the 1971 genocide. By bringing the war crimes' perpetrators
to justice, Dhaka has also succeeded in minimizing the threat
of Islamist extremists within the country, both because they have
become conscious of the clear intent of the incumbent Government,
and because many of their top leaders are among those arraigned
or convicted for the War Crimes.
The Government
also remained determined in its approach to dealing with JeI,
the country's largest right-wing party and main Islamist extremist
troublemaker. Law Minister Anisul Huq, speaking at Dhaka city
on December 7, 2014, announced, "The Draft Bill to ban JeI
will be placed in the Cabinet this month and it is expected to
be passed in the first session of the Parliament in 2015."
Notably, in a landmark ruling, the Dhaka High Court, on August
1, 2013, had declared the registration of JeI as a political party,
illegal. A three-member Special Bench, including Justice M. Moazzam
Husain, Justice M. Enayetur Rahim and Justice Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque,
passed the judgment, accepting a writ petition challenging the
legality of JeI's registration as a political party. Further,
in a major blow to JeI, Election Commissioner Shah Nawaz, on November
7, 2013, declared that the party could not participate in the
General Elections of January 2014, in line with the High Court
order. JeI was, of course, one of the Opposition parties that
boycotted
the Election.
Significantly,
Security Force (SF) personnel arrested at least 1,757 cadres of
JeI and Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS),
the student wing of JeI, through 2014, in addition to 4,038 such
arrests in 2013.
Nevertheless, disruptive
elements led by the BNP-JeI-ICS combine, continued to engage in
violent activities through 2014. According to partial data compiled
by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), a total of 60
people, including 29 civilians, nine SF personnel and 22 extremists,
were killed in incidents related to Islamist extremism in 2014
(data till December 21), in addition to 379 persons, including
228 civilians, 18 SF personnel and 133 extremists, killed in 2013.
As the Government
continued with its policy of checking the growth of Islamist extremist
forces led by the BNP-JeI-ICS combine, it deprived the Islamist
terrorist formations of any opportunity to revive their activities
within the country, despite sustained efforts, through 2014. The
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested JMB chief coordinator Abdun
Noor and four of his close aides from the Sadar Sub-District Railway
Station of Sirajganj District, on October 31, 2014, and recovered
49 detonators, 26 electronic detonators, four time bombs, 155
different kinds of circuits, 55 jihadi books, and a power
regulator. During preliminary interrogations, the JMB operatives
confessed that they were planning to carry out large-scale bomb
attacks across the country, particularly in Dhaka city.
In a disturbing
development, the Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police
(DMP) arrested two cadres of the Ansarul Bangla Team (ABT), Tanjil
Hossain Babu (26), who had some technological expertise, and Muhamad
Golam Maula Mohan (25), a Computer Sciences and Engineering graduate,
along with a plastic frame of a drone, electronic devices and
some books on jihad, from Dhaka city's Jatrabari area on
December 16, 2014. After their interrogation, Joint Commissioner
Monirul Islam of DB claimed, "They reached the final stages
of making the drone after a six-month planning and research. Once
completed, the drone could be flown up to around 25th floor of
a building to launch an attack." ABT is an al Qaeda inspired
terrorist formation that crystallized in 2013 from the remnants
of the Jamaat-ul-Muslimeen.
Nevertheless, under
the sustained pressure exerted by Security Forces, the country
did not record a single major terrorist incident (resulting in
three or more fatalities) by any Islamist terror outfit through
2014. In fact, only one violent incident involving such groups
was reported through the year. On February 23, 2014, a Police
Constable was killed and another two Policemen were injured, as
an armed gang of 10 to 15 unidentified terrorists ambushed a prison
van that was carrying three convicted Jama'at-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh
(JMB) terrorists in the Trishal Sub-District of Mymensingh District.
All the three convicts managed to escape during the ambush. Though
Police arrested one of them soon after, the whereabouts of the
other two remain unknown.
On the other hand,
a total of 96 terrorists were arrested through 2014, adding to
the 163 detained in 2013. Of these 96, 43 belonged to JMB, 25
to Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT), 12 to Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh
(HuJI-B),
six to Kalamaye Jamaat, five to ABT, three to Hizb-ut-Towhid (HT),
and one each to Kalema Dawat and Islamic State.
Dhaka has also
continued its campaign against an incipient Left Wing Extremist
(LWE) movement in a somewhat one-sided battle. Through 2014, 16
LWE cadres were killed - 11 of the Purbo Banglar Communist Party
(PBCP), three of the Purbo Banglar Sarbahara Party (PBSP), one
of the Biplobi Communist Party (BCP), and one unidentified. No
civilian or SF fatality took place in LWE-linked violence through
2014. In 2013, a total of 25 fatalities were connected to LWE
violence, including four civilians and 21 militants.
The nation, however,
continues to face a significant threat from Islamist extremism.
India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA), investigating the
October 2, 2014, accidental
blasts at Burdwan in West Bengal, uncovered
a plot by JMB to assassinate Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed
and BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia. According to revelations
made by arrested accused in the case, JMB was planning to establish
an 'Islamic state' in Bangladesh through armed struggle. The projected
'Islamic state' was also intended to incorporate the Districts
of Murshidabad, Nadia, and Malda in West Bengal. Referring to
the development, Bangladesh's National and Security Intelligence
(NSI) Director General, Mohammad Shamsul Haque, observed, on December
15, 2014,
We have
largely neutralized radical groups like the JMB or HuJI-B,
but now they seem to have found sanctuaries across the border.
If we think we have neutralized a group and sit easy, it
is (a) big mistake. There is no room for complacency. We
need to closely monitor their activities even if a few terrorists
are left in the fray. Because they may well set up bases
across the border, make fresh recruitment, acquire weapons
and plan attacks.
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Further, on September
5, 2014, Asim Umar, the leader of the newly formed al-Qaeda in
the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) based in Pakistan, incited Muslims
to engage in the global jihad (holy war) and expressed
his group’s determination to extend the fighting from Pakistan
to Bangladesh, Myanmar and India. Further, a video released on
November 29, 2014, and attributed to the 'Bangladesh division'
of AQIS, encouraged Bangladeshi Muslims to come to the jihadi
battlefield and included glimpses of a base of fighters in the
Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
Threats from the
Islamic State (IS, formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham,
ISIS) are also very much a reality. On September 29, 2014, a 24-year-old
British citizen was arrested in Dhaka city on suspicion of recruiting
people to fight alongside IS cadres in Syria. When asked about
Bangladesh’s position on the IS and the Syrian crisis, Foreign
Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali disclosed, on September 30, 2014, “We
have not heard about any presence of the [ISIS] group, but a British
citizen of Bangladeshi origin was arrested.”
Bangladesh’s achievements
on the counter-terrorism and internal security fronts through
2014 have been remarkable. Further, over the last few years, the
WC Trials have also progressed quite well. A note of caution,
nevertheless, remains to be sounded, as the residual capacities
of subversive and extremist elements, prominently including JeI-ICS,
are still significant, and their alliance with BNP remains sound.
Further, surviving fragments of a range of other outfits, including
JMB, HuT, HT, HuJI and ABT, also have a potential for regrouping
and fomenting violence. In the unstable environment of South Asia
and the wider Asian region, there is little space for complacence.
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