'Form joint taskforce to combat militancy'

Speakers at a discussion have advocated the formation of an inter-country taskforce to combat militancy in the region amid allegations of a Bangladeshi terrorist group's involvement in an explosion in India's West Bengal.

They warned that Bangladesh, too, could become unstable like the Middle East in the near future unless militancy was effectively checked.

Shahriar Kabir, acting president of 'Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee', an organisation demanding punishment for war criminals, reflected on the Oct 2 blast in Burdwan.

"The bomb explosion investigation has made militant activities in Bangladesh and India clearer, something we've been warning about for a long time," he told the discussion in Dhaka on Thursday.

Shamim alias Shakil Ahmed and Swapan alias Subhan Mandal were killed in the blast at a house in Burdwan while 'making bombs'.

Indian investigators claim the two were members of the Jamaa'tul Mujaheedin Bangladesh (JMB). Bangladesh has sought information from India regarding them.

Kabir said Bangladeshi militants with 'Jamaat-e-Islami links' were forming family ties in India and procuring illegal identity cards there.

"They have turned West Bengal into a small industry for producing weapons with funding from Pakistan, the Middle East and the West," he alleged.

He said the militants were inspiring poor, neglected rural people and madrasa students to join 'jihad' (holy war), which was a matter of concern for the world.

Kabir also talked about media reports claiming claimed West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress MP Ahmed Hassan Imran had sent huge sums of money to Jamaat and other fundamentalist groups.

Imran was a key functionary of the now banned Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the India correspondent of the pro-Jamaat Bangla daily, Naya Diganta, he added.

He stressed the creation of an inter-country taskforce, recalling that such a proposal by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had been shot down by Pakistan in 2009.

"The need to form such a taskforce involving the neighbouring countries has increased under the current situation," Kabir said.

Dhaka University Professor Muntasir Mamun said the neighbouring country had not acted when "militancy was being patronised in Bangladesh".

"But, now, India should be concerned over militancy. The [Bangladesh] government should form a joint taskforce with India and Nepal even if Pakistan refuses to join," he said.

Executive Director of the Institute of Conflict, Law and Development Studies Md Abdur Rashid said citizens step out to help the government combating terrorism.

Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque spoke of plans to make the correct history of the War of Independence and its spirit available to the coming generations.

The plans include preserving mass graves and battle grounds where freedom fighters had fought the Pakistani army and their collaborators, apart from building monuments to remind people of the misdeeds of anti-liberation forces and Razakars (collaborators).

He said there are plans to build a monument to the memory of the allied forces contributing to the Liberation War, finalising a list of freedom fighters, and giving shape to the graves of all martyred freedom fighters.

In addition, the government plans to allocate 100 marks for a paper on the Liberation War in BCS tests. Fifty marks will be for the 23 years before the liberation and the rest for the history of the Liberation War.