Beware, razakars back with a vengeance in Bangladesh
By Shamsher Chowdhury
THE recent assault of an elderly freedom fighter by some rowdy elements under the tacit support of those who openly opposed our war of independence is not only tragic but also a threat to the very basic principles based on which we fought the war and won our independence. Some years ago, when the BBC asked me about my feeling on the occasion of Martyred Intellectuals Day, I replied that tragedies facing this nation today far outweighed my personal tragedy. I wished that I had not lived to see this day. As though losing an illustrious brother (Shaheed Munier Chowdhury) were not enough and now this. To this day I carry the burden of not finding the remains of my illustrious brother. For long 23 years, until she breathed her last, my mother kept asking me what had happened to her dear son.
I have stopped lamenting over that matter for some years now, but surely each time an incident similar to this takes place the old wound opens up and starts bleeding. I am mature enough to understand that my brother will never return to the bosom of his beloved motherland but when these hyenas dig their fangs into the soul of the nation from time to time, I keep asking myself when they would leave us and our sacred land.
Government after government, since our independence, has, directly or indirectly, encouraged these bloodthirsty goons. In effect, this makes the multitude of people who were in charge of running the affairs of those governments of the past razakars by default. The government of Sheikh Hasina indirectly wooed these elements. Ziaur Rahman and his wife Khaleda Zia openly nurtured and even went to the extent of shielding, sponsoring and supporting these ugly specimens of human beings. Her party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, continues to provide support and encouragement to these demons.
The latest acts of vandalism seem to indicate that the present regime too has its blessings for these rogues. The government’s ostensible silence over their audacious behaviour, starting from the protest march organised by as many as five thousand religious zealots that originated from the premises of the Baitul Mukarram national mosque down to the innumerable audacious remarks made by none other than the secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami says it all.
The silence is perceived to be deliberate; had it not been so these criminal elements should have been hauled up and brought to justice by now. When the nationwide students agitation marches originating from Dhaka University took place, the agencies of the power that be got into a blitzkrieg-like action, and hauled up and pinpointed the possible suspects and those guilty numbering a handful from amongst thousands of agitating public, students or otherwise, and even went to the extent of mass arrests from amongst thousands spread all over the country. What is making this government to go easy and indulge in masterly inaction in hauling up these marked criminals involved in acts that threaten the very foundation and sovereignty of our nation? The answer is best known to them.
Our police pick up and put people behind bars on the slightest pretext, the Anti-Corruption Commission at all times arrests people on suspicions, keep them under lock and key and then go for framing of charges, the Rapid Action Battalion kills people at random in the garb of crossfire, why then this hesitation in bringing to book these marked and confirmed enemies of the state?
We have seen what Jamaat-e-Islami has done to Pakistan, Indonesia and a host of other countries. One can be euphoric about the arrests and hauling up of high-profile corrupt, bringing about a qualitative change in our electoral process, hunt for honest and capable candidates to participate in the forthcoming national elections but if we fail to rein in the unbridled march of these criminals of the most vicious type all that and more will become exercises in futility.
If the regime can set up an anti-corruption commission, create a revised women development policy, think of amending the constitution, create a national security council, even go to the extent of engineering emergence of new political parties with its blessings, one wonders as to what is holding it from setting up a fact-finding commission/mission on those who opposed our war of independence? I find it rather strange that while this government has been extremely vocal on the misdeeds of political parties in general and the high-profile corrupts in particular, no one came forward even with a routine statement condemning such debilitating acts.
It is now an established fact that Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamaat-e-Islami alone is the godfather of all that is anti-liberation in this country. There are a million justifications that merit outright ban of Jamaat-e-Islami in this country. It collaborated with the Yahya Khan’s government during 1969/71 and played a key role in the 1971 genocide carried out by the Pakistani occupation forces. Several of the accused in the countrywide August 17 bombings have said they were members of Jamaat-e-Islami. Jamaat-e-Islami is a direct threat to the country’s secularist and tolerant traditions. It was none other than the radical Islamists linked to Jamaat-e-Islami that targeted the Ahmadiyya community in the country vandalising their places of worship and threatening to eliminate the entire community.
Time is fast running out. We should put our acts together without any further loss of time before these branded terrorists and religious zealots establish their hegemony on the sacred soil of our beloved country and do away with all that we ever so dearly stood for – democracy, secularism, international brotherhood.
Source: New Age Daily, Bangladehs
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/beware,-razakars-back-with-vengeance/d/254