But, where is Islamic State, asks Bangladesh home minister

Extremists cannot establish their views in Bangladesh by killing ‘one or two people’, the home minister has said amid torrents of protests following a series of murders by suspected Islamic radicals.

At a conference organised with representatives of different religions on Thursday, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal denied Islamic State (IS) members were involved in any of the attacks.

“People are being murdered, and the credit is being given to IS. But where is this IS?

"The Islamic scholars sitting before us, none of them will say they have ties to the IS. We have not heard of their presence from these Alems, Ulamahs… or from a mosque or a madrasa," Kamal said.

Inspector General of Police (IGP) AKM Shahidul Hoque and DMP chief Md Asaduzzaman Mia were also present in the event with Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Buddhist representatives, organised to promote awareness about militancy.

The separate killings of Rajshahi University professor AFM Rezaul Karim Siddique, gay-rights activist Xulhaz Mannan and his friend Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy by machete-wielding assailants this week have made headlines globally as attacks continue on an already embattled section of seculars in Bangladesh.

The Islamic State has taken responsibility for the teacher’s murder on Saturday while the al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) claimed it killed Xulhaz and Tonoy in Dhaka’s Kalabagan on Monday afternoon.

US Ambassador Marcia Bernicat, in an earlier meeting with the home minister, talked about possible IS presence in Bangladesh.

But Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has blamed the murders on campaigners against her government which she said had been carried out for political gains.

“What we have here are homegrown terrorists. They have tried to be active. They still come up now and then,” said the home minister.

“Now they kill one or two people, but it is impossible to spread their IS views in Bangladesh.”

“So I’ll tell the people behind these acts to stop believing in this idea.”

The men police arrested over the execution-style murder of a Hindu priest at Panchagarh had ‘accepted their mistake’, he said.

“They used to burn people to death. Now there is a rise in individual killings. These are attempts to impede our progress.”

Ambassador Bernicat, after the murder of Xulhaz, who was an official of her embassy, said the United States wanted to help because the crisis was too overwhelming for one government to handle.   

But IGP Hoque, speaking at the programme, said, “There is an international conspiracy here…I’ll tell those people who think globally. They want to make it look like they care more about this than we do.”

There is a government and a police force in Bangladesh, but some countries still try to ‘come close’, which he said, also happened in the case of Iraq and Syria.

“Citizens should have respect for the religious, moral and social values that exist in our country. Those who live here should also respect our values.”

“Problems start when something rejected by our culture is forced upon it… You must all know what I mean,” he said. 

He claimed that 80 percent of the attacks by militants from the last two years had been solved and the perpetrators arrested.