Walking the Knife-Edge
Ajai Sahni
Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict
Management
The coup
and the assassination have been integral to political transition
in Pakistan virtually since the moment of its creation [the
country's first Prime Minister, Liaqat Ali Khan, was assassinated
in 1951, and violence or machinations have marked virtually
every change of regime since]. This ruinous legacy continues
to reassert itself at each crucial turn of the country's
history. So, again, even as the Pakistani dream continues
to unravel, the country's military dictator General Pervez
Musharraf - himself in power as the result of a coup against
an elected Government - came under two serious attempts
on his life within eleven days, on December 14 and December
25, 2003, the latter involving two separate suicide attacks
within moments of each other.
Speaking on national television after the second assassination
attempt, Musharraf spoke harshly about the "cowardly people
who attack while hiding", and declared that "terrorists
and extremists" opposed to the global war against terrorism
might have plotted the attacks, adding further that he would
not be cowed down by such actions. It would appear that
the lines between the Pakistani state and the Islamist extremist
forces that have long been its protégés would finally harden
into a clear antagonism.
Both the assassination attempts and such a crystallization
of attitudes have been expected ever since Ayman al Zawahiri,
Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, speaking on the second
anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the US, had declared
in a message to "our brother Muslims in Pakistan": "How
long will you be patient with Musharraf, the traitor who
sold out the blood of the Muslims in Afghanistan and handed
over the Arab emigrant Mujahideen, the descendants of the
Companions of the Prophet, to crusader America?"
Things, however, are never entirely clear in Pakistan, and
the establishment has so long been in bed with the terrorists
that the disengagement is far from simple or inevitable.
Thus, even as President Musharraf was denouncing the "cowardly
people" who had attacked him, his Information Minister,
Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad, was arguing that 'the jehadi
culture in Pakistan could not be changed and he who denied
jihad had no place in Islam', adding, however,
that "whether or not it is jihad can only be decided
by the state." The distinction between 'our jehadis' and
'their terrorists' has evidently survived in Pakistan's
political rhetoric, despite the attacks on the country's
current President. The ambiguity is also reflected in an
interesting turn of phrase in reports on the assassination
attempts on Pakistan television; the expression "khud
kush hamlavar" or 'suicide attacker', a decidedly pejorative
description, was used repeatedly to describe the failed
assassins. Islamist suicide bombers in Kashmir, in Palestine,
and in other parts of the world are routinely glorified
as 'fidayeen', 'those who sacrifice themselves',
and this has been the conventional appellation on Pakistan
TV as well.
Such ambivalence is, however, becoming progressively unsustainable
in Pakistan, if only because the line between 'our jehadi'
and 'their terrorist' is being rapidly obliterated. Many
of the prominent terrorist groups that are perceived as
being close to the state and substantially controlled by
the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) now have cadres moonlighting
for, and deeply sympathetic to, Al
Qaeda and its affiliates, even where the top
leadership remains apparently compliant.
The growing danger to Musharraf and his regime, however,
does not come from the swelling ranks of 'their terrorists'
alone. Preliminary disclosures blame the Christmas assassination
attempt on the Al Jihad, a relatively minor terrorist group
that has been virtually inactive for several years, but
matters are far from simple. Both the recent attacks reflect
high levels of complexity as well as of complicity within
at least a section of the establishment, and these discredit
the possibility of a rag tag operation. Both incidents occurred
within a hundred yards of one another in Rawalpindi, which
is the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army and the
most militarised city in a militarised country; they occurred
within the high security Cantonment areas; they occurred
on the President's daily route, which can reasonably be
expected to be completely sanitized. The December 14 incident
is particularly significant in this context. Over half a
tonne of explosives had been transported to, and then unloaded,
concealed and primed at, a bridge that is heavily guarded
round the clock, on the regular route between the President's
office and residence; and had been detonated by remote control,
presumably by an assassin lying in wait in sight of the
bridge [the attempt failed, according to the official Pakistani
line, because of the jammers on the President's cavalcade,
though it is still unclear how or why the explosion eventually
did occur over a minute after the procession had passed
beyond the bridge]. Again, on December 25, reports indicate
that there were two Presidential motorcades - one of them
a decoy - moving simultaneously on two different routes,
but the terrorists were able to correctly identify and target
Musharraf's motorcade. There is, consequently, in both incidents,
substantial circumstantial evidence to suggest an 'inside
job'.
If disaffected elements in the Army, presumably at a level
sufficiently high as to engineer such operations, are now,
indeed, targeting Musharraf (and this remains essentially
in the sphere of informed speculation) the fragile equation
that has been contrived between powerful and ideologically
incompatible political entities - including armed non-state
groups - to maintain a modicum of order in Pakistan is now
dangerously imperilled. To the extent, moreover, that much
of the world, including the US and increasingly India, has
invested almost its entire faith on the survival of this
tenuous arrangement, and in General Musharraf, to contain
the burgeoning dangers of this epicentre of terrorism, the
situation is grim. As The Washington Post noted,
"The past week has given the Bush administration more cause
to reconsider its heavy reliance on a single general, Pakistan's
Pervez Musharraf, to maintain stability in one of the world's
most dangerous areas."
The assassination attempts in Pakistan also underline the
frailty and brittleness of the current and vaunting peace
processes in South Asia. While both the Indian and Pakistani
leadership are, in the run up to the South Asian Association
for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit in January 2004,
currently competing to outdo one another in the rhetoric
of South Asian 'unification', the fragility of the balance,
the contingent nature of all plans and enterprises in the
region, and the degree to which the initiative lies with
organisations committed to terrorism, make a mockery of
all such projections.
For the moment, Musharraf has survived and the SAARC summit
is expected to go ahead on schedule, with all regional leaders
having reconfirmed their participation, despite serious
and legitimate security concerns. To believe, however, that
peace is somewhere around the corner, is delusional. Pakistan
and its leaders - including Musharraf and his generals -
have only just begun to pay the price for their long sponsorship
of terrorism, what one leading Pakistani commentator described
as "the 'globalisation' of terrorism we performed in the
past decade", and the conflagration will escalate substantially
before it is eventually doused. Regrettably, it is not Pakistan
alone that will have to pay the price of its past and ongoing
transgressions.
ULFA Offer of Talks: A Tactical
Move?
Wasbir Hussain
Associate Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New
Delhi; Consulting Editor, The Sentinel, Guwahati
On December
26, 2003, Day 12 of the Bhutanese military assault against
Indian insurgents in the Himalayan kingdom, the United Liberation
Front of Asom (ULFA)
- the largest among the three groups battling the royal
army - offered conditional peace talks with New Delhi. ULFA's
self-styled commander-in-chief Paresh Barua telephoned this
writer from an undisclosed location for a lengthy interview
in which, apart from stating that the ULFA had 'repeatedly'
been requesting Bhutan to act as a mediator for possible
peace negotiations between his group and the Indian Government,
the ULFA leader made the following main points:
-
ULFA
is ready for peace negotiations with the Indian Government
provided New Delhi agrees to discuss their key demand
of sovereignty, with a neutral third party mediator
acting as facilitator (in the past, India has consistently
rejected third party mediation in all negotiations with
insurgent or terrorist groups in the country).
-
ULFA
has requested Bhutan several times to play the role
of mediator, and to convince New Delhi to agree to discuss
the sovereignty issue.
-
Bhutan
had sought time on this and that the crackdown on the
rebels, including the ULFA, by the Royal Army came even
as his group was continuing with their negotiations
with Thimphu on the modalities for the rebels' withdrawal
from the kingdom.
-
That,
like Norway which facilitated the resumption of the
deadlocked peace talks between the Sri Lankan Government
and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),
ULFA would only accept a nation state as a third party
mediator.
-
New
Delhi could argue its point of view on ULFA's sovereignty
demand in case the two sides were to meet directly.
-
ULFA
is always ready for a 'scientific process' of talks,
through which it could make a beginning towards achieving
its demands, or otherwise determine the scope for progress.
What precisely
is new in these comments by the elusive ULFA 'military chief',
and do they assume particular significance, coming as they
do in the wake of the battle in Bhutan? ULFA's claim that
it had been urging the Royal Government in Thimphu to mediate
between the rebel leadership and the Indian Government is
certainly new. If that is, indeed, the case (and in view
of the Bhutanese authorities' refusal to comment, this claim
cannot simply be dismissed as false), it implies that ULFA
may actually have been preparing grounds for a possible
peace dialogue with New Delhi. In fact, ULFA's detained
'publicity chief' Mithinga Daimary alias Dipak Kachari (he
disclosed his real name as Dipak Kachari while talking to
the media after his handover by the Bhutanese Army to Indian
authorities last week) also told journalists during a court
appearance in Guwahati earlier in the day on December 26,
2003, that his group had requested Bhutan to act as a mediator.
The fact that the statement is separately corroborated by
two top ULFA leaders does give some credence to the outfit's
claims.
A couple of years have passed since the ULFA set three preconditions
for any possible talks with the Indian Government: talks
must centre around their demand for sovereignty; must be
held outside India; and must occur under the supervision
of the United Nations. Now, during his conversation with
this writer, the ULFA 'C-in-C' had made two concessions:
(1) he said a neutral third party mediator would do, and
(2) he said New Delhi would be free to argue its case on
ULFA's sovereignty demand. Known to be a tough hardliner,
Barua, has thus given clear enough indication that the ULFA
would be willing to hear out the Indian Government's point
of view on the sovereignty issue. This in itself is a positive
development, though it would be premature to describe this
as a softening of its position. Nevertheless, there are
signs in this of the rebel leadership coming round to a
reasonable stance that could well provide a breakthrough
to a political approach to solving the insurgency problem
in the Northeast Indian State of Assam.
The timing of Paresh Barua's offer for talks, albeit conditional,
cannot be missed. Despite his claim that only between 15
and 20 of his cadres have been killed and about the same
number wounded in the battle in the jungles of southern
Bhutan, the fact is that his group, as also rebels belonging
to the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB)
and the Kamatapur Liberation Organization (KLO),
have been uprooted from all of their 30 camps inside the
Kingdom. The number of fatalities may not be the most significant
consideration here (the Indian Army would like to believe
that at least 120 rebels have been killed); rather, the
fact that the rebels have been dislodged from fortified
bases which they have long used to launch murderous raids
on the Indian security forces or other targets, and return
to the safety of their camps is the most significant impact
of the Bhutanese military operations. The insurgents had
been benefiting from this safe haven for the past 12 years,
and Bhutan's attempt to persuade the rebels to withdraw
from the Kingdom over the last six years had not yielded
results.
Within Assam, the ULFA had ceased to operate as a cohesive
force right from the time of the first Indian Army offensive,
Operation Bajrang, launched in November 1990, followed by
Operation Rhino. Thereafter, it was only in its Bhutan bases
that the outfit had the breathing space to plan its political
and military strategies, and to carry out strikes into adjoining
Indian territory. With the Bhutanese military assault, the
ULFA's line of command and control has been snapped, and
its primary operational base has been lost.
What is particularly disturbing for the group is that almost
all its key middle-rung leaders have fallen into the security
net. Here, mention can be made of the group's 78-year-old
ideologue and political advisor, Bhimkanta Buragohain, thought
to have been dead, but who appeared on December 26, 2003,
to surrender before the Indian Army at the IV Corps Headquarters
in the north Assam garrison town of Tezpur. He had been
handed over by the Royal Bhutan Army to Indian authorities
on December 25. Mithinga Daimary, the ULFA' publicity chief',
was another senior leader, captured and handed over to India,
as were Buragohain's deputy, self-styled 'Major' Robin Handique,
and the outfit's medical specialist Dr. Amarjit Gogoi.
Buragohain was one of the founders of the ULFA, and his
capture and subsequent 'surrender' is certainly a major
loss for the group. More than that, his statement to the
media describing the 'path of armed struggle' for independence
as 'wrong,' and his appeal to his fellow rebels, including
Paresh Barua, to give up violence and lay down arms, could
have an adverse impact on the morale of those rebels still
with the group. Here, some may choose to reject the significance
of Buragohain's remarks, as they came in the form of a written
statement while he was in the custody of the Indian Army
(he was subsequently handed over to the Assam Police on
December 27. The Police now say that the 'law will take
its own course' in dealing with him, as the Army did not
mention his 'surrender' in the FIR it lodged with the Assam
Police before handing him over). But the ULFA veteran could
have refused to make any such statement, or, had he been
under pressure from the Army, could have broken ranks at
the Press Conference and refused to cooperate further, and
he would not have been much worse for the experience.
A significant chorus that has been heard from fleeing militants
over the past fortnight is that the Bhutanese crackdown
had taken them totally by surprise. Many of them, including
ULFA 'lieutenant' Domeswar Rabha, a hardcore cadre who had
been trained by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Myanmar
in 1988, Utpal Bharali, Naziruddin, Surya Boro and others,
told this writer during exclusive conversations after their
surrender to the Indian Army and the Assam Police, that
their leaders had never once given them any indication of
a possible assault by the Bhutanese. "Every time, our senior
leaders used to tell us everything was fine and that our
relations with the Bhutanese were quite cordial. After this
attack, we lost faith in our leadership and decided to give
up," Utpal Bharali, 31, a former ULFA 'sergeant', told this
writer at a safe house in the north Assam town of Mangaldai
on December 22, 2003. Even the ULFA's detained publicity
chief Daimary confessed they had been surprised by the Royal
Army's action.
Clearly, the ULFA leadership had either taken Thimphu so
much for granted that they never imagined the possibility
of military operations against the Indian rebels, or the
group's leaders had not passed on to their cadres, any information
of a possible crackdown that they might have had.
Paresh Barua, however, has his own version of the turn of
events: he told this writer that the Bhutanese assault came
even as discussions between his group and the Royal Government
was on: "Our foreign secretary and adviser (Shasha Choudhury
and Buragohain) were in talks with Thimphu, both with Brigadier
Victor (believed to be a Royal Bhutan Army commander) as
well as the Home Ministry. In response to Bhutan's request,
we had sent faxes to the Home Ministry there saying that
I shall be coming over for a meeting with them. Then, as
there was a five-to-six-day break in the talks, the operations
began". He said Thimphu launched the offensive "in a hurry"
due to "intense pressure from India."
Attempting to verify these claims is pointless, but the
news blackout on the progress, as well as the success or
failure of the operations by the Bhutanese authorities has,
in fact, helped the ULFA in its crucial hour. For instance,
the ULFA 'C-in-C' has put the number of his fighters killed
at not more than 20. On its part, Bhutan remains silent
on the casualty figures. Secondly, the ULFA leader made
a significant claim during his conversation with this writer
that he had ordered his cadres not to fight the Bhutanese
troops and to leave. "Bhutan is not our enemy really, and
so we had taken that stand. Later, when we realized that
it is the Indian Army that was actually fighting us inside
Bhutan, we asked our soldiers to retaliate," Barua claimed.
Indian Army officials, of course, denied sending soldiers
into Bhutan.
A war of words is only to be expected in an inaccessible
theatre of combat. Scoring brownie points will certainly
be uppermost on the rebel group's agenda in its bid to keep
the morale of cadres and supporters high. The most crucial
consideration, at present, however, is whether ULFA's conditional
offer for talks is merely a tactical move to get some pressure
off its back, or whether it is a serious offer that could
lead to some progress in pushing through the logjam of persistent
insurgent violence in Assam. In either event, New Delhi
can be expected to approach the offer with a measure of
seriousness, and to initiate some efforts towards a political
process that may move towards a lasting solution to the
problem. Bhutan, after all, is certainly not the ULFA's
last post.
Islamic Militancy: The Shadow Lengthens
Guest Writer: Haroon Habib
Senior journalist, commentator and author, Dhaka; former
Chief Editor of Bangladesh Sangbad Sanstha (BSS), the country's
premier news agency
The Bangladesh
Government recently and sharply rejected a Canadian Security
Intelligence Service (CSIS) report that had alleged that
Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia's Government was "not doing
enough" to prevent the country from becoming a "haven for
Islamic terrorists" in South Asia. The report, obtained
by the Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act,
says the Bangladesh Government was unwilling to crack down
on Islamic terrorism. The CSIS report also suggested that
there could be dangers to Canadian aid agencies in Bangladesh.
A foreign office spokesman at Dhaka has dubbed the report
'a campaign to malign Bangladesh'.
Similar 'rejections' had also been articulated by the Bangladesh
Foreign Office, and by powerful ministers of the alliance
Government, when the Far Eastern Economic Review,
the Time magazine, and subsequently other prominent
foreign media, published reports about growing jehadi
activities following the change of regime in Dhaka after
the elections of 2001. While the ruling Alliance has consistently
denied the presence of Islamic militants in the country,
the nation's vibrant Press, political Opposition and leaders
of civil society have repeatedly projected a different picture.
While the Government's overall position remains broadly
unchanged, there is now growing evidence of a less aggressive
stance, as evidence mounts, with at least occasional disclosures
of encounters and arrests of jehadis by the enforcement
agencies leaving them no choice but to admit that a number
of clandestine militant Islamic groups were, in fact, active
across the country, and were receiving significant external
support.
There are now increasing reports of the operation of several
jehadi groups in the country, particularly in its
northern and western regions, with coherent linkages and
political networks, as well as access to arms and military
training. Whatever their actual numbers or present capabilities,
as well as the limited influence they have on the general
population, these jehadis have started causing alarm
in democratic circles, and unless they are effectively contained,
may become a real and extraordinary danger in the imminent
future. There are also frequent allegations in the media
regarding the 'mysteriously soft' attitude of the Government
towards these entities, as none of the arrested militants
has, so far, received any punishment, nor has there been
any meaningful investigation into their funding and support
structures.
Police and intelligence agencies first suspected the involvement
of these underground outfits in a series of bomb blasts
at secular cultural functions and political meetings, which
killed nearly a hundred people between 1997 and 2001. The
fanatics also planted powerful bombs at one of then Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina's political meetings. At that time,
Government agencies had unearthed some militant 'hideouts'
and a few cadres with suspected 'foreign connections' were
arrested. But the administrative measures were too small
to contain the fast growing networks that have become entrenched
over the past decades.
Understandably, with the change of regime in mid-2001, the
genuine national concern was perhaps neglected since the
new Government had been formed with the support of two of
the country's organized fundamentalist parties, the Jamaat-e-Islami
and the Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ). The installation of the
alliance Government gave a boost to the radical Islamists's
morale, after they had virtually been on the run during
the previous Awami League (AL) rule. With the change of
guard, most of the arrested militants, including those charge-sheeted,
were released on bail and eventually the charges against
them were dropped. Within a year, however, the 'concern'
had started resurfacing, with the media reporting frequent
encounters between 'armed Islamic militants' and the police,
as well as subsequent arrests, with interrogations throwing
light on foreign linkages of the cadres and organizations.
Although these clandestine armed outfits first came to be
focused on in the late Nineties, they have had their roots
in the country since 1971, when Bengalis of the former East
Pakistan were fighting their war of liberation against then-West
Pakistan. The Jamaat-e-Islami, with its militant students'
group, Islami Chhatra Sangha, had floated their first armed
cadres, 'Al-Badar' and ' Al -Shams' to 'defend Islam' and
Pakistan's unity while the Pakistan Central Government had
formed the 'Razakar Bahini' to counter the Bengali freedom
fighters. Two senior ministers of the present cabinet -
Matiur Rahman Nizami and Ali Ahsan Mujahid - were directly
involved in the floating of these infamous groups, which
were responsible for killing of hundreds of secular Bengali
intellectuals after branding them 'anti-Islamic'. These
groups were the first militant religious organizations in
this country, formed in close co-operation with the Pakistani
Army.
Following the bloody political changeover in 1975, Bangladesh
has passed through a prolonged military and pseudo-democratic
era. The banned Jamaat-e-Islami and other 'anti-liberation'
entities which took part in the 1971 genocide were once
again given license to operate, thanks to the subsequently
assassinated President General Zia-ur-Rahman, the founder
of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). And in the name
of Islamic charity and religious education, the jehadis
started building up their initial bases with substantial
funding reportedly from sources abroad. Over the years,
thousands of madrassas (seminaries), known as 'Koumi
Madrassas', entirely outside governmental control and
nor accountable to anyone except their sponsors, were built.
The main objective of the sponsors of a large proportion
of these madrassas was allegedly to train and develop
the 'soldiers of Allah': the jehadis.
Testimonies of arrested militants suggest that they are
well funded and well equipped to carry out an 'Islamic revolution'
in the country. They are staunch admirers of the Taliban,
and many of their cadres reportedly fought in Afghanistan
and also in Kashmir. Media reports suggest that a section
of the Jamaat-e-Islami, IOJ and the Islami Shasantantra
Andolon may be in league with some of these extremist groups,
though these political fronts have all denied the charge.
The Government has not banned any of the militant groups
so far, with the exception of Al-Hikma.
Ironically, while the Government seems adamant about rejecting
the 'charges' regarding religious militancy in the country,
its Social Welfare Minister and Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary
General, Ali Ahsan Mujahid's remarks on December 19, 2003,
deserve special scrutiny. "The base of the fundamentalists
in Bangladesh," he declared at a party meeting in northern
Nilphamari, "is so strong that all other powers are sure
to be defeated here." He added further, "in a country where
azans (calls to prayer) are offered from lakhs of
mosques every day, there is no chance for the Awami League
to return to power…."
Incidents in the early months of year 2003 suggested that,
though the militant outfits may not be very large, their
cadres had been completely indoctrinated by their mentors
to launching campaigns of violence that members of the groups
claimed were a 'holy war'. There are also reasons to believe
that the activities of these extremist groups have a regional
and global dimension, although there has been no serious
investigation or probe into this aspect.
Bangladesh is an over-populated country with high levels
of illiteracy and unemployment, and has been targeted by
vested interests for a kind of political adventurism. Nevertheless,
despite being deeply religious, the common people of the
country have no special love for the jehadis, though
a section of the extremely poverty stricken may be vulnerable
to their blandishments if their activities and agenda are
not effectively challenged. The militancy may also cash
in on the discriminatory nature of the country's educational
and economic systems. It is, consequently, necessary to
make an objective assessment of the political, economic
and cultural factors that enable and sustain the growth
of these forces, and effective action must be taken to rid
the nation of this menace. If the Government is not sympathetic
and their funding and communication linkages are shut down,
these groups would not be able to operate, and would certainly
not be growing in strength.
Media investigations suggest that the Islamic militants
in Bangladesh are presently split into more than a dozen
groups, with each commanding a strength of a few hundred
or thousand. The numbers alone do not give an adequate picture
of the seriousness of the situation. On December 25, 2003,
for instance, national newspapers reported that nine persons
- including five members of the Ansar (the state
'Para Police') - had been arrested in connection with a
bomb explosion inside an abandoned and dilapidated residential
hotel on the western Khulna-Jessore Road. The arrested Ansar
members were on duty at the hotel premises at the time of
the explosion. The blast occurred when they were making
bombs, and Police suspect that the four young men arrested
belong to an extremist Islamic organisation, possibly the
Al Muzahid party. The Police also recovered several books
and booklets authored by fundamentalist leaders from the
hotel rooms. A hand-written brochure titled Islamic Andolaner
Note ('Points for the Islamic Movement') was also recovered.
Police officer Shafiqul Islam of the Khalishpur thana (police
station) disclosed, "One could make more than 100 bombs
out of the quantities of bomb-making materials which were
recovered by the police from the hotel rooms". The recovered
materials included sulphur, potash, broken pieces of glasses,
nails and rice husk. Police also recovered 12 live bombs.
While there is still not authoritative assessment of the
strength and firepower of these groups, and weapons seizures
have been negligible, while storming some 'training camps'
in the jungles in southern Cox's Bazaar, security forces
found advanced weapons, as also evidence of the involvement
of the Rohingya Muslim rebels from Myanmar's Arakan province.
Various investigations over the past few years, moreover,
demonstrate that the bombs used by these extremists were
highly sophisticated.
So far, security agencies have reportedly identified 48
'training centres' across the country. The names of an estimated
13 militant organisations are known, but only a few of them
have created news. The known groups include Shahadat-e-al-Hikma,
Jamaat-ul-Mujahid-ul-Bangladesh, Jaamat-e-Yahia Trust, Hizbut
Tawhid, Al Harakat-ul-Islamia, Al Markaj-ul-Islami, Jamaatul
Falaiya, Tawhidi Janata, World Islamic Front, Jumaat-as-Sadat,
Shahadat-e-Nabuat, Harkat-ul-Jehad Islami and Al Khidmat.
To resolve the problem, secular thinkers suggest that the
administration must first shed its 'ostrich syndrome', take
serious note of such clandestine groups and work out strategies
to neutralise them, since they reject both democracy and
the idea of the sovereignty of the people. The so-called
Islamists do not conceal their intention to set up a theocratic
state, and hold the existing democracy responsible for 'anti-Islamisation'.
Their ideological roots lie in Pakistan and Afghanistan,
and several arrested militants have confessed that they
received arms training in Pakistan, and fought in Afghanistan
and Kashmir.
Reports have it that Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has now
asked the Home Ministry and concerned agencies to launch
a 'massive manhunt' for these clandestine extremist groups.
But how can the Government act effectively against these
militants with the Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Oikya Jote,
two self-professed Islamic fundamentalist parties, as its
coalition partners? How can the Government contain such
militancy when it's own political strength is shared by
the religious fundamentalists?
