SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 9, No. 44, May 9, 2011

BANGLADESH

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Fundamentalist Backlash
Sanchita Bhattacharya
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

A rash of Islamist fundamentalist violence has broken out across Bangladesh. On April 3, 2011, Railway Madrassa students took out processions in Jessore. When the Police intercepted the procession, the madrassa (seminary) students attacked the Policemen. In the retaliatory action, a madrassa student was shot dead and 30 people were injured.

On April 4, 2011, a dawn to dusk hartal (shut down) was observed across the country. The hartal was called by Mufti Rashidul Hasan Fazlul Haq Amini, leader of the Islami Ain Bastabayan Committee (IABC, Islamic Law Implementation Committee). The IABC is linked to the Islami Oikko Jote (IOJ), a political party which has openly been vocal about its support for the Islamist militants, the Taliban and the al-Qaeda. The IOJ is allied to the main opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP). The ruling Awami League’s (AL) General Secretary, Syed Ashraful Islam claimed the BNP and its ally Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) sponsored the hartal and Aminee was used strategically to implement their political programme. He also alleged that BNP-JeI were on the streets during the strike. Meanwhile, Amini, on April 15, had threatened to paralyse the country, declaring, “We can create an impasse in the country by a one-hour notice as there are 20,000 madrassas which will respond to our call immediately.” 

Violence erupted in Dhaka, Chittagong, Chandpur, Barbaria, Faridpur, Feni, Moulvibazar and Khulna during the April 4 hartal. While, 250 people, including 16 Policemen, were injured and another 200 people were detained, in the wake of mass attacks on vehicles, public transport and Security Forces. In a fresh wave of violence on May 1, hundreds of Islamic activists, belonging to Islami Andolan Bangladesh (IAB, Islamic Movement Bangladesh) wearing the traditional white Muslim dress and sporting copies of the Quran, marched in Dhaka, where the Police had imposed a ban on political rallies. A Police spokesperson said nearly 200 protestors were wounded during clashes with riot-Police. An estimated 150 Islamic activists were detained, whisked away in prison vans.

The apparent provocation of this unrest is the National Women’s Development Policy (NWDP) 2011, declared by the Government on March 7, 2011, which includes, among others, a provision of an equal share for women in property and opportunities in employment and business. Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury, State Minister for Women and Children’s Affairs, stated, “The approval of the NWDP has created a great scope for the advancement of women empowerment”. Women’s rights groups have also backed the Government, urging an early implementation of the policy.

Unsurprisingly, the NWDP has provoked the fundamentalists, who have rejected it as ‘anti-Islamic’ and ‘anti-Quran’ , and have orchestrated mass agitations across Bangladesh, demanding its withdrawal. An umbrella Islamist group, the Islamic Law Implementation Committee (ILIC), further threatened to paralyse the country if the Government did not scrap what it termed "anti-Islamic provisions" in the NWDP.

The NWDP is a revival of the 1997 Women’s Development Policy, and is the fulfillment of an Election (2009) pledge by the AL. The 1997 Policy was formulated during the previous tenure of the Sheikh Hasina Wajed led AL Government (1996-2001). The Begum Khalida led BNP coalition Government (2001-2006), of which JeI was a part, approved another Women’s Development Policy in 2004, deleting crucial provisions, such as “equal right”, “equal and full participation”, “right to land”, “inheritance” and “property”, or replacing them with “constitutional right”, “preference” and “greater participation”.

Meanwhile, in 2008, the then Caretaker Government had announced another Women’s Development Policy, guaranteeing equal rights, including property rights for women, which was also opposed by a section of Islamic clerics. As a result, the then Government had constituted a 20-member Ulema (Islamic experts) Committee on March 27, 2008, to identify any potential "inconsistencies" in the Policy. On April 17, 2008, the Ulema Committee submitted its recommendations, strongly opposing the grant of equal rights to women, recommending deletion of six sections of the policy and amending 15 others which, the Ulema claimed, "clash" with the provisions of the Quran and Sunnah (sayings and examples from the life of the Prophet). Suggesting the inclusion of guidelines "in the light of the Quran and Sunnah" while taking any decision regarding women’s rights, the Ulema Committee recommended abolishing the section that recommends steps to implement the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The Committee also asked the Government to cancel the initiative to reserve one-third of parliamentary seats for women and the application of comparable reservations to local elections.

Hafez Maulana Ziaul Hasan, Chairman of Sammilito Islami Jote (United Islamic Alliance), a liberal Islamic organization, on April 28, 2011, however, noted, “The review (Ulema) committee could not pinpoint any verse in the Quran that the Women's Development Policy contradicts. It also failed to show any provision of the policy that contradicted the Quran and Sunnah ."

Resistance to the hue and cry against the NWDP is significant. The leaders of Gausul Azam Maizbhandari Parishad [GAMP. Gausul Azam Maizbhandari Shah Sufi Moulana Syed Ahmadullah was a Sufi saint who started the Maizbhandari Sect. GAMP preaches his religious practices and works for the development of society], an Islamic social organization, on April 12, 2011, criticized IABC for creating an ‘anarchic situation’ in the country during protests against the women’s development policy. Syed Saifuddin Ahmed Maizbhandari, Secretary General of the organization, stated, “Creating anarchic situation and sufferings for people are considered as the most heinous activities in Islam. Amini and his followers have done such heinous activities on the hartal day (April 4).”

However, IABC’s Amini has identified the policy's Section 23.5, which speaks about opportunity and participation in employment, wealth, market and business for women, as ‘un-Islamic’. Further, Section 25.2, which seeks to give women full control over the wealth they accumulate through earning, inheritance, loans and market management, is also declared ‘anti-Islamic’. Amini insists that the IABC was not opposed to policies for the development of the women, but these must be formulated in the light of the holy Quran and Sunnah.

Various scholars have contested Amini’s claims. Maulana Mohammad Ziaul Hasan, an Islamic academic from the Islamic Foundation argues, "Any literate person will understand that the word 'wealth' in Section 23.5 does not mean inherited wealth. Similarly, the word 'inherit' in section 25.2 does not imply equal share of property to women." Noted educationist Prof. Sirajul Islam Chowdhury declared, on April 18, “Amini's comments are very objectionable and tantamount to treason for denial of the Constitution.” Professor Chowdhury asserted that Amini had taken a direct stand against the Constitution, which guarantees equal rights for all, irrespective of gender. Besides, other scholars noted, the women’s development policy is not a law, but a guideline upholding the Constitution and existing laws.

Rattled by the protests, however, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina sought to appease the fundamentalists and announced, on April 20, 2011, that her Government had removed all contradictions from the NWDP to make it ‘confusion-free’: “After going through the Quran, especially Surah an-Nisa, we have removed contradictions from the policy.” Hasina reiterated, further, that AL would never enact any law or adopt any policy which conflicted with the Quran or Sunnah. She added, further, that the Government would also append to the policy, the religious and social reservations mentioned in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. At the same time, she asserted that vested political groups were carrying out propaganda against the women and education policies in the name of religion and urged Islamic scholars to remain alert about such attempts. Again on April 26, the Prime Minister noted that a certain quarter “trading on religion” had been trying to mislead people by misinterpreting the NWDP, although Islam as a religion never approves inequality between man and woman.

Significantly, on December 7, 2010, the AL Government had approved the National Educational Policy (NEP) 2010, which prescribes a uniform curriculum and syllabus to be followed in general, madrassa and vocational education. Quami madrassa (private seminary) administrations were asked to form a commission and determine what they want to introduce in their institutions. All educational institutions were required to register with the Government to gain legality.

The Islamists, who favour the implementation of the Sharia have clubbed both NWDP and NEP together, and have opposed these measures as an unwarranted interference in their religious affairs.

The successful implementation of the NWDP and NEP could mark the beginning of a new era for Bangladesh, where Democracy has been restored and carried forward by two women Prime Ministers. Nevertheless, given the complex range of initiatives that the Sheikh Hasina Government has introduced to curb the activities of Islamist terrorists, extremists and fundamentalists, a delicate balancing act will be necessary to ensure that the system, long perverted by dogma and extremist ideologies operating at the very centre of power, is not tipped over into a fundamentalist backlash that would wipe out the gains of the past year.

PAKISTAN

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Justice in Terror
Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

A Peshawar Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on April 25, 2011, took exception to the inordinate delay by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP, erstwhile North West Frontier Province) Government in hiring a defence counsel for the banned Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) chief, Maulana Sufi Muhammad, charged in nine cases, including sedition, conspiring against the state and encouraging terrorism. The ATC gave the Prosecution Department a final chance to hire a state lawyer before the next hearing on May 9, 2011. Sufi Muhammad, meanwhile, stuck to his decision of not hiring a lawyer to defend himself.

Earlier, on December 30, 2010, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, expressed his dissatisfaction with the poor functioning of ATCs, particularly with regard to the low disposal and high pendency of cases. The data cited indicated disposal/pendency figures of the ATCs in the four Provinces as follows:

A day later, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani also voiced similar concerns in the National Assembly (NA), admitting that the ATCs needed improvement, because thousands of terrorists, who had been apprehended by law enforcement agencies, got bail from courts due to legal lacunae and resumed terrorist activities. The Prime Minister added, "I will not blame the judiciary, but we have to improve the Anti-Terrorism Act."

The ATCs were established in 1997 under former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Government to deal with terrorism. The main purpose was to disburden the parent judicial system from the increasing number of terrorism related cases. The 1997 Anti-Terrorist Act was amended on October 24, 1998, by the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance, and originally applied to the NWFP and Balochistan. On August 27, 1999, the Pakistan Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance extended the ATC system to the entire country.

The data on disposal and pendency of cases before the ATC does not adequately reflect the gravity of the situation. According to the Pakistan Security Report 2010 published by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), law-enforcement agencies had arrested 10,161 suspected terrorists across the country, including 8,863 alleged members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other Taliban affiliated groups, 50 al Qaeda operatives, 288 suspected Afghan Taliban, 18 militants of Jundullah (a Karachi-based group) and 147 cadres of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). A significant proportion of these suspects were released after preliminary investigations, although precise figures were not made public.

Partial reports from other sources help fill up the picture. According to an October 16, 2010, report in Dawn, the ATCs in the Punjab Province had freed the accused in 306 high-profile terrorism cases after witnesses resiled out of fear, while suspects in another 372 cases were acquitted on the basis of compromises between the parties, or on merit, through 2010. The Punjab Public Prosecution Department initiated proceedings against hardened criminals and activists of banned outfits in 1,324 cases registered under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) from January 1 to September 30, 2010. These cases were sent to 14 ATCs working in Lahore, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Multan, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan Divisions. The report disclosed that 479  of these cases resulted in the acquittal of all accused, including 144 cases in Lahore courts, 62 in Gujranwala courts, 42 cases in Rawalpindi, 35 in Multan, 53 in Faisalabad, 62 in Sargodha, 42 in Bahawalpur and 39 in Dera Ghazi Khan. The prosecution was successful in securing convictions in just 199 cases, 43 in Lahore, 40 in Gujranwala, 15 in Rawalpindi, 14 in Multan, 22 in Faisalabad, 34 in Sargodha, eight in Bahawalpur and 25 in Dera Ghazi Khan. The prosecution department had 235 cases transferred from the ATCs, to lower courts because these were found to be unsuitable for trial under the ATA.

Some of the high profile cases, in which the accused were set free, include:

December 15, 2010: Judge Malik Akram Awan of Rawalpindi ATC No. I acquitted Qari Ilyas, who was accused of involvement in a suicide attack which had killed 15 Policemen and two civilians near Islamabad’s Melody Market on July 6, 2008.

May 13, 2010: Justice Raja Ikhlaq Hussain of Rawalpindi ATC No. II acquitted nine persons allegedly involved in a suicide attack, which had killed the then Surgeon General of Pakistan, Lieutenant General Mushtaq Ahmed Baig, and eight others in Rawalpindi on February 25, 2008, in the jurisdiction of the RA Bazaar Police Station.

April 9, 2010: Justice Raja Ikhlaq Hussain acquitted seven terrorists accused of involvement in a car suicide bombing targeting a 72-seater bus of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), parked in front of the Hamza Camp (Ojhari Camp) near Faizabad in Rawalpindi on November 24, 2007, which killed 32 people.

March 2, 2010: Judge Malik Akram Awan of the Rawalpindi ATC No. I acquitted seven accused who were arrested in connection with a suicide attack targeting a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) bus on the Faisalabad Road in Sargodha in Kamra, killing seven PAF officers and three civilians.

January 2, 2010: Rafaqat Hussain and Hasnain Gul, accused of involvement in two suicide attacks in Rawalpindi, were set free by Rawalpindi ATC No. I due to lack of evidence. They were also accused of being part of the conspiracy to assassinate Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007, in Rawalpindi.

Another media report on March 24, 2011, indicated that, during an internal security assessment in February, 2011, the KP Government was informed that, of 1,443 militants arrested, 695 had been bailed out, mostly by appellate courts, while 48 others had been acquitted by ATCs. The only conviction in the Province, to that date, had been delivered by an ATC of the Malakand Division in early March 2011, when a ‘commander’ of the Swat chapter of the TTP, Noorani Gul, was handed down a cumulative prison term of 120 years. The overall conviction rate in terrorist cases in KP stood at five per cent.

Worse, KP Information Minister Iftikhar Hussain observed, on February 25, 2011, that “those terrorists freed by the courts become active again as they are given the opportunity to regroup.” Giving details of cases decided by courts over the preceding two years, Hussain noted that 200 cases had been registered during 2009, but the number fell to 101 in 2010. However, a 75 per cent increase was recorded in the last quarter of the year. 96 per cent of those charged with terrorism were freed by the courts, while four per cent were convicted.

The Pakistani military establishment is particularly dismayed by the dismal performance of the Rawalpindi-based ATCs, which failed to convict even a single terrorist over the last three years for involvement in at least two dozen high-profile cases of suicide bombings in and around the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad between 2007 and 2010, primarily targeting Security Forces (SF) personnel. A senior Army official at General Head Quarters conceded, while requesting anonymity, that the country’s khaki (Army) top brass was really upset with the performance of the ATCs not only in Rawalpindi, but also in KP.

Lack of evidence is cited as one of the reasons for the acquittal in most the cases. The prosecution’s cases collapse because the trial judge often finds witnesses and confessional statements unreliable. Advocate Basharat Ullah Khan of Rawalpindi noted, “if the eyewitnesses were found at the right time, the prosecution fails to fulfil legal requirements, making the testimony invalid”. The lack of evidence also points a finger at the ill equipped Police Force. Policemen who had received training in skills like lifting fingerprints or gathering other forensic evidence, are rarely used, Akbar Nasir Khan, former Police Chief of Mianwali District in Punjab, observes; “If there is no fingerprint provided to the court, no bloodstained clothing, no ballistics provided, no firearms or other things, how can the court convict?”

Meanwhile, a close scrutiny suggests that, though the judiciary has failed to deliver, it is Governments at both the national and provincial levels which are more at fault. Governments appear disinterested in pushing appeals against inadequate sentences or the acquittal of militants and terror suspects. Section 25, Sub-section 4, of the ATA 1997, provides that “the attorney general may, on being directed by the federal or a provincial government, file an appeal against an order of acquittal or a sentence passed by a Special Court within 15 days of such order.” The clause is used with extraordinary reticence.

The President had promulgated the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance, 2009, on October 1, 2009, in the expectation that amendments to the ATA would help in taking appropriate action against those involved in acts of terrorism. Following completion of the constitutional life of 120 days of that ordinance, it was re-promulgated in February 2010, but was allowed to lapse on May 31, 2010, with the Federal Government making no attempts at its renewal, demonstrating a surprisingly lackadaisical approach in dealing raging terrorism in the country.

The problem, clearly, lies at every level of the system, with each concerned agency demonstrating a lack of capacity and will to address a problem that grows more urgent by the day. Given the enveloping institutional decay in Pakistan, it remains unlikely that much will change in the foreseeable future.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

BANGLADESH

INDIA

Assam

Jammu & Kashmir

Left-wing Extremism

Chhattisgarh

Jharkhand

Maharashtra

Odisha

Total (INDIA)

NEPAL

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Sindh

Total (PAKISTAN)