Bangladesh must crack down on killer extremists
There are two ways to look at the Bangladesh police chief's advice to “freethinkers” to “not cross the limit” and “not hurt anyone's religious belief”. One is that the advice was well-intentioned and based on ground realities: Bangladesh, despite its secular Muslim core, has a rabid jihadi fringe which has become increasingly muscular. Thesejihadists brook no dissent; and hence, the official's advice to play safe. The other view is that the police chief, Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Hoque, had capitulated before the extremists, or worse still, internalised the latter's illiberal and intolerant arguments.
There is no way to know for sure, but, if the authorities wish to indicate their commitment to upholding the law of the land and maintaining peace and stability, they need to start bringing the perpetrators to justice. Niloy Chakrabarty Neel, murdered in his Dhaka apartment on August 7, was the fourth secular blogger to be brutally silenced by Islamic fundamentalists this year. On May 13, Ananta Bijoy Das was fatally attacked by a group wielding machetes in Sylhet. Before that, in March, Washiqur Rahman was hacked to death in Dhaka.
His killing came only weeks after Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-American, was murdered, also on the streets of Dhaka, on February 26. In 2013, Ahmed Rajiv Haider was also killed in a similar manner, ostensibly for catalysing the Shahbagh movement that year which demanded the death penalty for razakars, convicted of crimes against humanity in the 1971 liberation War. Unfortunately, in none of these cases has the police made much headway.
Haider's two-year-old case, which grabbed international attention, is still on trial, while not a single chargesheet has been filed for the rest, despite a handful of arrests being made. Even in Rahman's case, wherein the two murderers were caught by locals and handed over to the police, there has been no progress. Neel, who had been on the Islamist hit list for a while and received several threats to his life, had repeatedly asked for police protection, but his pleas were ignored.
Already, Bangladesh authorities have come under immense criticism, from within the country and outside, for their inability to bring the perpetrators to book. If they do not make amends in this regard and start showing results, it will only be a matter of time before the Government itself is considered to be a silent supporter of the extremist cause.
This would be an unfortunate perception for the Sheikh Hasina regime, which has worked tirelessly to reverse the damage done by its predecessor administration (which counted the Jamaat-e-Islami among most vocal political allies), and protect Bangladesh's secular credentials. Inaction or inadequate action will be seen as a victory of the extremists. It is no coincidence that all the attacks have been carried out by one outfit, the Ansarullah Bangla Team, which is linked to the Jamaat's student wing and fancies itself as the Al Qaeda's Bangladesh franchise.