Jamaat a 'terrorist' group: Inu

Information Minister Hasanul Hoque Inu said on Sunday that the government was considering banning the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student affiliate, Islami Chhatra Shibir, under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

He said the Jamaat-Shibir had clearly emerged as a ‘terrorist’ party in view of the recent countrywide violence they unleashed.

“The Jamaat is a registered party and takes part in the national elections. But their recent acts [of violence] were not in the nature of mass demonstrations. These acts of sabotage and terrorism, especially the attacks directed against the police and the security forces, were planned and well organised,” Inu said.

The Minister said the radical party was gradually emerging as a terrorist organisation.

Two of the party’s top leaders have already been convicted by the war crimes tribunals of Bangladesh. After the conviction of Delwar Hossain Sayedee on Feb 28 on war crimes charges, the Islamist party and its student front went on rampage across Bangladesh.

The Jamaat-Shibir combine launched countrywide attacks on government property including offices, railways, buses and trucks. They also attacked the police and the religious minorities across the country demanding dissolving the tribunals and release of their leaders.

Around 70 people, including several policemen, were killed in the latest spate of violence. The Jamaat-Shibir combine have also emerged as the main suspect in a spate of murders directed at activists of the Ganajagaran Mancha or those who have testified against their leaders in the war crimes trials.

Jamaat has been opposing the tribunals since the Sheikh Hasina-led administration set them up to try suspected war criminals in 2010. They alleged the government was trying to carry out political vendetta against them.

BNP chief Khaleda Zia, a key ally of Jamaat, has termed the trials ‘farce’.

Around three million people were killed during the nation’s nine-month long bloody struggle for freedom in 1971 and hundreds of thousands of women were raped. Nearly 10 million people were forced to take refuge in neighbouring India.

In its verdicts, the tribunal observed and elaborated how the radical party and its student front, known as Islami Chhatra Sangha then, had contributed in forming auxiliary forces to assist the Pakistan army to thwart the nation’s freedom struggle.

Jamaat has been denying the charges.