Bangladesh's Prime Minister has acted tough against perpetrators of violence unleashed by the Opposition. She must follow it up by continued strong action
Hefazat-e-Islam warriors and their leaders had announced repeatedly that they would rather die than leave the Shapla Chattar area of Dhaka, where they had been allowed to hold a rally on Sunday, until their 13-point charter of demands was met. In the event they fled, albeit not without skirmishes that caused casualties, as a few thousand personnel from Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion, police and Border Guards Bangladesh, closed in around 1.30 AM on Monday, firing rubber bullets and teargas shells. By 2.50 AM, the area, where tens and thousands of angry Hefazat men had gathered and were shouting slogans, had a deserted look. As a report in The Daily Star, Bangladesh's leading English-language daily put it, “Only a few thousand pairs of sandals and wooden and bamboo sticks, which they left in a hurry while fleeing for cover, bore the testimony of their presence there in a massive number.”
While the security forces displayed remarkable skill and professional competence in handling the situation which could easily have exploded in massive violence, they can hardly afford to rest on their laurels; nor can Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Government relax. Efforts by the Hefazat, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to create a civil war-like situation in the country will continue. And these still retain considerable capacity for unleashing large-scale violence — a reminder of which was provided, if one was at all necessary, by attacks their activists launched on policemen, RAB and BGB personnel at Kachpur in Naryanganj in the outskirts of Dhaka on Monday morning. These left two police and one BGB personnel and four others, of whom two were garment factory workers, dead. Fifty — including 10 belonging to the police and BGB — were injured. Ten vehicles, including a van belonging to the RAB, were burnt. On the same day, eight persons, including a Bangladesh Army Sergeant and four Hefazat supporters, were killed and 50 persons, including five policemen, were injured in a clash with the police in Chittagong.
In fact, activists of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its students' organisation, Islami Chhatrashibir, along with those of the Hefazat, which they have been supporting, had unleashed havoc on Dhaka. To quote from a report in The Daily Star, “Bangladesh has seldom experienced brute violence of [on] this scale. Several parts in downtown Dhaka now resemble a burned-out and looted zone.” The report continued, “Thousands of radical Hefajat-e Islam men, instigated and bolstered by Jamaat-Shibir activists, exploded into an awe-striking force and set fire to hundreds of shops and police outposts as the evening fell.
“Dhaka's night skyline turned orange, as flames leaped from burning establishments after power supply was cut off...”
Clearly, the rally should not have been allowed to be held. Bangladesh's Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir told reporters on Sunday afternoon, “Hefazat leaders kept constant contact with me. They said no Hefazat men indulged in violence, rather it was Jamaat-Shibir men who, in the guise of Hefazat activists, created anarchy.” Mr Alamgir was being naïve if he believed the Hefazat leaders. While Shibir activists often instigated and led the violence, the events of Sunday evening and the violence on Monday and later, removed all doubt about the Hefazat's involvement. Nor can the Awami league realistically hope to detach the Hefazat from the Jamaat. Its ideology, as reflected in its 13-point charter of demands and other documents, is identical with that of the Taliban, and very similar to the Jamaat's. It is totally antagonistic to the Awami league's creed of secular democracy and gender equality.
Mr Alamgir did well to declare on Monday that the Hefazat won’t be allowed to hold more rallies. But the Government needs to do more and take harsh pre-emptive measures to thwart the BNP-Jamaat-Shibir-Hefazat plan of ousting it by creating civil war-like conditions necessitating the military's intervention. As the hartals on May 8 and 9 called by the Jamaat-BNP-led 18-party alliance indicate, they are determined to do their worst. The tough action early on May 6 has given Ms Hasina critical respite. She needs to follow it up by continued strong action. Hanging in the balance is the fate of her country.