Terror strikes again
THE Police Superintendent's office at Gazipur trembled on February 21 with the explosion of a grenade detonated by a handcuffed JMB operative. At least 15 people were injured. The recent blast, following the bomb attacks in Naogaon in 2004, serial blasts in August 2005 and the blasts that killed two judges in Jhalakathi, is a reminder that no place, not even the police superintendent's office, is immune to JMB's activities.
This action by a handcuffed terrorist shows that innocent people are hostage to an organised terrorist group that can carry out orchestrated attacks across the country. The outlook seems gloomy. It is satisfying that around fifteen operatives of JMB, including three women and the present JMB chief Mohtasim, have been arrested. What is most alarming is that women are being inducted into the JMB.
The blast has certainly convinced the citizenry that some groups belonging to radical Islamic factions are involved in terrorism. No doubt, terror continues to visit us stealthily but steadily, no matter where we are.
The recent blast has shattered the nation's complacency. Out there, someone has been waiting for the right moment and the right place to strike. Fear has staged a comeback. And terror, with a religious address, is no longer a distant memory, even if the government claims that it will succeed in combating terrorism.
Fundamentalist Islamic groups are operating covertly in about 29 zillas, as reported in newspapers. With the execution of JMB supremo Abdur Rahman Shayekh, Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai and Ataur Rahman Sunny in March, 2007, the radical group was weakened and went into hiding because of leadership crisis. By executing some identified leaders the administration has only treated the symptom, not the disease.
The disease is fanaticism which is inculcated into the minds of people who are made to believe that their cause or their thinking, is the just one and must prevail. The fanatics are only a handful compared to the millions believing in the interplay of ideas and opinions as in democratic, open countries of the world. Because they are a minority, they resort to such terrorist methods.
With about 3000 operatives, as reported in newspapers, and about 100 having special training in arms use and bomb making, they have regrouped and gained enough strength to create havoc in the country. If the text of the leaflets circulated are anything to go by, the JMB wants "to establish Islamic rule in the country," followed by a threat that they would go for counteroffensives against the administration should the government fail to pay heed to their warnings.
The leaflet says: "We are the soldiers of Allah. We have taken up arms for implementing Allah's law and the principles Prophet Muhammad (SM), Sahabis and heroic Mujahedeen have followed for centuries." The leaflet denounced democracy, calling it a system crafted by kafirs. It also decried the country's constitution and called for setting up a Shura (the highest consultative committee) comprising Alems, Ulama Mashaek and Islamic scholars.
Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai, through meticulous planning, set up organisational bases and militant training camps in madrasas and in the remotest areas of the country. They translated their plan into action with the help of huge funds from the Middle East, which were meant for building mosques and madrasas. Unhappily, a substantial amount of these funds went into the jihadi fund.
The revelation of foreign money coming into Bangladesh in the name of charitable causes of Muslim organisations, and then being used to promote an ugly kind of fundamentalism and terrorism, is really worrying. One might recall the suicide bombings in Kashmir, Mumbai, Delhi and Gujrat believably carried out with the help of such funds.
It is the proliferation of such foreign funded Qaumi madrasas run by the radical groups that seemingly led to Islamic fundamentalism spreading in the country, which earlier had the most gentle Islam. Mamun, who detonated the grenade kept for display in the SP's office, is an explosives expert and his wife, an ehsar (full time) member of JMB, carried out the sinister plans while working as a management chief of a madrasa in Bogra.
The rise of fundamentalism in its present form, based on hate campaign, was inevitable when Jamaat-e-Islami, the reported mentor of JMB and JMJB, got credibility and opportunity after two of its members were appointed ministers. After so many tumultuous events in the country during the BNP rule, when zealots destabilised the administration, the alliance between the coalition partners was so firm that religion and politics often appeared as inseparable.
It is puzzling as to how the government could, despite repeated warnings about the activities of Bangla Bhai, pass it off as a creation of the media without investigation. More so, how could the administration shut its eyes to the flow of funds from Middle Eastern countries, running up to crores of taka, in the name of funding madrasa education and recovery of Islamic heritage? Neither the government nor the public have any knowledge about the amount that slipped into the jihadi fund.
Now is time for us to wake up and defend, for someone seems to be out there to break the nation down as a whole. The enemies have nothing to lose but themselves, for their act is born out of blind fanaticism, but the country has a lot to preserve -- the national will, its honour and freedom, characteristics and culture.
All the blasts were a message to the law enforcers, law makers and all parties that, in an environment of high political stakes, bickering and heightened anxiety, no one was safe. They remind us that Bangladesh is about to face an ominous storm from zealots in hiding. The consequences are too frightening to comprehend.
The immediate past alliance government's soft attitude may have inspired the "holy warriors" consumed by hate, revenge and zealotry to wage war against the rule they call man-made. Paradoxically, such carnage and murder of intellectuals, politicians and journalists is carried out by a group determined to establish a system divorced from the realities of the world.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments