Sadeq Khan
For over six weeks in February-March this year, the pre-hustings “psy-war” strategists of the ruling political camp had staged at Dhaka city’s Shahbag cross-roads, closing to traffic and protecting by barricades under Metropolitan Police oversight, a lavishly funded and colourfully conducted “third party” agitation against its own court of International Crimes Tribunal. The “third party” joined by activists of various wings of the ruling camp demanded “death sentence” for all of the several eminent opposition leaders indicted in that court, for “war-crimes” allegedly committed forty-two years ago.
The agitational fervour drew lynch-law crowds with children taught to shout “kill” for fun. That pro-government lynch-law agitation began to lose steam under the backlash of countrywide violent protests and demonstrations that broke out after a “political” verdict of death was pronounced on February 28 against a top Jamaat leader and highly-respected religious preacher with a huge rural following. Simple folks, including women folk, flocked from villages to police stations, upozilla administrative centres and to mofussil towns to collectively vent their anger, and wherever obstructed, wrecked havoc. At one point the district administration of Bogra called upon the army to temporarily come to their aid, and protect the arsenal of a police station abandoned by law-enforcement agencies.
Vehement rural uprising and protests in several other districts took place leading to arson and lots of damages to public property. The police simply failed to ensure public safety and it was the local community leaders who prevailed on the mobs to cool down and form local squads for protection of public property. But the government decided to apply terror tactics and abuse police powers to confront such pockets of public grievance. Night raids were carried out by the police with reinforcements and ministerial orders to shoot to kill suspects and frame the recalcitrant in gang cases for rioting and vandalism. The police actions against protest groups as well as political resistance organised by Jamaat-Shibir activists in various localities in the country led to a spate of killings and clashes that were condemned as “genocidal” by the Leader of the Opposition. In a March 29 report, the world media TV channel Al-jazeera reported:
“As of March 8, Odhikar – a human rights organisation based in Bangladesh – has reported at least 143 dead and thousands injured. According to other sources, these numbers have reached 165 and 3,828 respectively. A majority of the casualties, over 90 percent, include civilians. Unfortunately in times of crisis, especially in times of war, women and children suffer the most, despite their significant lack of involvement in the initiation of conflict. Bangladesh’s women, children and minorities have been losers, in the independence war of 1971, but, more recently, now.
“Last week, 16 more members of the female student wing of JI (Jamaat-e-Islami) were arrested. Most of them were grade 9 students, who had just completed their Junior School exams. These were girls in their early to mid-teens accused of planning to sabotage. The house of one of these students, who had invited others to celebrate their Junior School Certification and commendable results, was subjected to a police raid.
“Aside from large numbers of civilian casualties and the continued victimisation of women, there is also very serious recent spike in the persecution of religious minorities in the country. Reports of attacks have reached 1,000 minority houses and 50 temples. Amnesty International has shown concern over this recent wave of attacks on the minority Hindu community.”
Typically in line with the prevalent mode of political blame game derailing honest investigation and administration of justice in this country, the ruling camp pointed finger at Jamaat-Shibir activists for attacks on minorities, and Jamaat leaders claimed it was land-grabbers of the ruling camp and their agent-provocateurs who attacked and looted minority homes, temples and businesses, falsely accusing the disciplined opposition activists for such misdeeds. Rights experts at the United Nations expressed their indignation and pointed out that it was the government’s responsibility to protect minority life and property from marauders, whichever side they might belong to.
Thus, through the month of March including the Independence Day on March 26, the nation has witnessed a series of countrywide hartals, divisional or district or local-level hartals, police raids and clashes, deaths and injuries, arson and vandalism, and a crescendo of increasingly threatening and confrontational rhetoric by the political contenders for power. With the advent of April and after the heavy disruptions, police actions and continuing deaths of April 2 countrywide hartal observed by the Opposition 18-party alliance, a pause for reflection appeared to have been projected in the media with whispers of civil society mediation and some diplomatic persuasion for a political breakthrough by declaration of an early general election under an agreed mode of interim government and election management between the two competing camps. The rhetoric, however, continued to rise to higher pitches on both sides, and another critical deadline of non-party “ideological” divide began looming large.
The revelation of a blogger network closely linked with the Shahbag agitators who have been systematically carrying on a vilification campaign against Prophet Muhammad and against Islam led to indignant reactions from pious Muslims at large in the country and the saturation of a very broad “non-political” league of the pious against Shahbaghwallas (and by association against a section of government leaders) under the leadership of doyens of Islamic scholarship in Bangladesh calling themselves Hefazat-e-Islam (Protection of Islam). This “non-political” league of the pious had declared on March 9, and has been preparing since then, under nine zonal committees, massive marches towards Dhaka with 13-point demands that include death sentence provision in the blasphemy law, disbanding of the Shahbag “anti-Islam” movement and arrest of blaspheming bloggers, and also reinstatement at the top of the book of Constitution the dictum of “full faith and trust in Allah.” Hefazat-e-Islam has planned a gathering of 5 million people, one million from Chittagong alone.
To avoid the embarrassment as well as the overwhelming adversity of such a massive mobilisation on life and administration of the capital city, even if largely peaceful, the government has been breathing hot and cold over the shoulders of the organisers of the marches to dissuade them from the programme or at least to change the date, to persuade them to denounce Jamaat-Shibir’s current violence and past “war-crimes”, and to meet them half-way by distancing the government from the Shahbag crowd and penalising some blaspheming bloggers. The opposition camp on the other hand, declared their open support to the programme of massive marches by Hefazat-e-Islam, and presumably maintained covert co-ordination of their own plans of activism in that programme.
Late efforts by the government failed to make any dent in the Hefazat-e-Islam’s resolve to make a showdown in the capital. Government emissaries were however able to obtain a condemnation of “violent” Jamaat politics from a section of Islamist and “Tarikat” celebrities. But these celebrities also lent support to the demands of Hefazat-e-Islam, most of them promising to take part in the “March to Dhaka” programme. Government people nonetheless managed a small group of puppet Islamic figures to stand by the dwindling Shahbag agitation as well.
Along with the last group of Islamist “renegades”, a hard-core of strategists within the ruling camp has now decided to play the “third party” card again and embark on a collision course to frustrate Hefazat-e-Islam’s march to Dhaka. Three major movers of the lynch-law mob at Shahbag, Sammilita Sangskritik Jote, Ekatturer Ghatal Dalal Nirmul Committee and Progatishil Peshajibi Samonnaya Parishad called for countrywide hartal from April 5 evening to April 6 evening. Other organisations who participated in Shahbag events, including Sector Commanders’ Forum supported the hartal with the same demands. The “renegades” styled as Bangladesh Islami Jote also called hartal on April 6 protesting anti-Islam activities of Jamat-Shibir, but demanding punishment for atheist bloggers as well.
In a press-briefing at Dhaka on April 4 morning, Hefazat-e-Islam Ameer Allama Shah Ahmed Shafi said, “We have decided to hold the long march as part of our religious duty. Our programmes are not against the government. But Hefazat-e-Islam would enforce non-stop hartal from April 7 if the Shahbagi-led organisations do not call off their April 6 hartal immediately.”
People throughout the country, and particularly in the capital Dhaka, are very worried indeed, though the heads at the helm of affairs of the state appear not to care.
Source: Weekly Holiday
