Govt tells Bangladesh Bank to take measures against financial institutions linked with Jamaat-e-Islami

The finance ministry has told the central bank to take action against all financial institutions with links to the Jamaat-e-Islami.

Sheikh Abdullahbdnews24.com
Published : 24 Nov 2015, 05:05 AM
Updated : 24 Nov 2015, 05:51 AM

The ministry’s Bank and Financial Institutions Division issued a letter to the governor of Bangladesh Bank on Sunday, hours after Jamaat Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid was executed for his 1971 war crimes.

Motivated by information received from the home ministry, the finance ministry also asked the governor to clamp down on all service-providing entities, educational institutes and any other organisation operated by Jamaat.

The move comes amid demands from different organisations and political parties to get tough on all financial institutions that have ties to the party, which the war crimes tribunal described as a ‘criminal party’ in its verdicts.

The far-right Islamist party is widely believed to have made investments in services, trade, education, transport and media, and to have been financially benefitted from these ventures.

A 216-page annexure was also sent with the letter signed by Deputy Secretary Md Rizwanul Huda of the finance ministry.

Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governor Abu Hena Md Razi Hasan said, “Since the government has directed this, we will certainly comply with it.”

“But first we have to scrutinise the data mentioned in the letter and in the annexure. We will also have to see how much the central bank can do about it,” he told bdnews24.com.

The government, however, did not specify the nature and manner of actions it wanted against the Jamaat institutions.

The demands for identifying and taking steps against Jamaat-linked institutions gained momentum when the Shahbagh movement, which demands capital punishment for war criminals and action against anti-liberation forces, began in Dhaka in February 2013.

The Ganajagaran Mancha at Shahbagh also came up with a list of institutions they believed had ties with Jamaat and actively opposed the bid for liberation from Pakistan in 1971. But many of the institutions denied having links with the party.

Slogan 71, a pro-liberation civil platform, lists the Islami Bank as the biggest financial venture of Jamaat.

Several high-ranking Jamaat leaders and war crimes accused were, at different times, in the bank’s Board of Directors.

For example, Abu Naser Mohammad Abdus Zaher was the chairman of the immediate past board. He was allegedly a leader of the infamous Al-Badr Bahini, a local collaborator force of the Pakistan army in Chittagong in 1971.

Before him, condemned war criminal Mir Quasem Ali, also a member of Jamaat’s central committee, was the vice president of the bank. He was, at the same time, involved in the administration of the Islami Bank Foundation.

Former chairman of the bank Shah Abdul Hannan, too, was known to have close ties with Jamaat.

Moreover, a number of hospitals, diagnosis centres, medicine manufacturers, insurance companies, media outlets, transport companies, real estate ventures, schools, colleges and coaching centres were identified as being run by Jamaat.