RAB chief wants imams on government payroll to make the fight against terrorism ‘easy’

The chief of the Rapid Action Battalion suggests the government should bring all imams and muezzins of mosques on its payroll to make the fight against terrorism “easy”.

The anti-terrorism battle needs involvement of all, not just law-enforcement agencies, Benazir Ahmed said.

But he lamented that imams are not using their Friday sermons against terrorism and drugs which are forbidden in Islam.

“We see they make political statements,” said Ahmed, the elite force’s the director general. “If you want to do politics, form a political party. Don’t use mosques.”

“I personally believe that all imams should be brought under the government pay scheme. Then it’ll be easy [to fight terrorism],” he said.

“I think the number of mosques will not exceed 700,000. The government has the capabilities now to pay them,” he said, citing the size of the national budget.

“Then we’ll be able to do many things,” he said, adding that despite efforts, they could not unite all the Islamic leaders in Bangladesh for making common statements against terrorism and extremism.

Ahmed spoke at a discussion organised by the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute on how to prevent ‘radicalisation and violent extremism through empowering youths’ in Dhaka on Wednesday. Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen was also present.

The terrorism issue came to the fore in Bangladesh after the Holey artisan bakery attack in 2016.

Ahmed said they have been able to destroy all of the terrorism groups with the help of people. “But there is no chance of complacency. Unless the global terrorism diminishes, it’s very difficult to sterilise Bangladesh.”

Social media appeared to be a big challenge because millions of materials to encourage terrorism and extremism spread on Facebook, Twitter and blogs, but demotivating materials are very few, he said.

UNCOVERING THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM

Foreign Minister Momen urged all to raise questions over the source of the money and weapons supplied to terrorists in order to purge terrorism from the world.

“If we can do that, then I have hope that one day we can identity who the facilitators of terrorist activities are,” he said.

Momen underscored the government’s zero-tolerance policy against terrorism and said it has taken a series of initiatives to address violent extremism.

“We need coordinated and sincere efforts from all stakeholders. We must root out the basic causes of terrorism and ask questions about who are funding, training and supplying modern weapons to terrorists,” he said.

“Whenever someone is killed in a terrorist attack, I urge our media to report the names of the victims. But at the same time, I will appreciate if they flag the bullet or weapon with which the individual was killed and trace it back to its manufacturer,” he said.