Radical threat in Bangladesh

The Sheikh Hasi government may have hanged Islamist leaders on charges of war crimes in 1971, but their fatic supporters are operating in Bangladesh with impunity. Their eyes are on the media, particularly social media, threatening and attacking anyone whose views do not coincide with theirs. Since 2013, six bloggers have been brutally murdered in Bangladesh, four within this year itself. Bangladesh-born US tiol Avijit Roy in February at Dhaka, Washiqur Rahman in March also at Dhaka, Anta Bijoy Das in May at Sylhet city and Niloy Chakrabarty Neel last Friday again at Dhaka, were all hacked to death by machete-wielding killers. The ‘crime’ of all these bloggers was the same — they had dared to express their views against radical Islamists in their blogs. Three of them were involved with the ‘Gajagaran Mancha’, a social media platform which waged a vigorous campaign demanding capital punishment for Bangladeshi war crimils, who had sided with Pakistani troops during the Bangladesh War of Liberation and perpetrated atrocities on their own people. Jamaat-e-Islami leaders Abdul Qader Molla in December 2013 and Muhammad Kamaruzzaman in April this year were hanged, while eight others are on death row. In the last two years, at least 200 people have been killed in clashes between Islamist party activists and security personnel. The Awami League regime may have checkmated Begum Khaleda Zia’s BNP for now, after it boycotted the general elections last year and let Sheikh Hasi remain in power unchallenged. But its allies like the Jamaat and other radical Islamic parties continue to pose a serious threat to Bangla polity. If the Central government in India and governments of bordering states like Assam are not watchful, this threat can easily spill over across the border to take strong roots on Indian soil.