HuJi leaders appeared after talks with government

Trackback URL

Download PDF

Leaders of Harkatul Jihad al Islami (HuJi), who went into hiding after the government had banned the organisation in October last year, gathered in a rally at Baitul Mukarram mosque last Friday as a consequence of a long negotiation with the government for holding political programmes openly.

The government claimed it had not known the identities of the HuJi leaders who attended the rally.

State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar said he was not in the capital on Friday and Saturday, and learnt about the rally from newspaper reports. He told journalists that intelligence agencies also had not informed him earlier about the rally.

Sources in the banned organisation however contradicted the government statement saying that they had been holding discussions at different levels of the government for a long time in pursuit of open activities. The rally organisers also said they had even informed the government in advance about Friday’s rally, which was held under the banner of Sachetan Islami Janata (Conscious Islamic People).

“We’ve been trying for a long time to convince the government that nobody of Harkatul Jihad, other than Mufti Hannan and Abdur Rouf, is involved in any terrorist activity and has any criminal record. Besides, HuJi was dissolved in 1998,” Kazi Azizul Haque, an organiser of the HuJi leaders’ rally told The Daily Star yesterday.

“I’ve tried to make the government understand that there is no problem in allowing these leaders to hold political programmes openly,” Azizul said. He however denied having any negotiation with the government for holding Friday’s rally.

“The main objective of our discussion was to convince the government not to arrest any of us when we start holding political programmes openly under a different banner,” a HuJi source said, preferring anonymity.

According to some sources, the government asked the HuJi leaders not to hold any programme openly, saying such a move would give rise to controversies and earn the government pressures from domestic and foreign sources.

“But there was an assurance from the government of not arresting or harassing any of our leaders if we follow the government’s instructions,” said the HuJi source.

According to HuJi sources, they had been trying to hold programmes openly for over a year but the government asked them to be patient saying that the country’s situation is volatile due to the bomb attacks carried out by another banned Islamist organisation Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

HuJi first discussed with Bangladesh Khelafat Andolon (BKA) rehabilitation of its leaders and activists by using the banner of BKA, but backtracked from that decision thinking that it might give rise to a controversy by casting an aspersion that mainstream Islamic organisations are sheltering militant Islamists. It later decided to launch a new platform.

Impatient by the delay in getting a green signal from the government, the HuJi leaders decided to hold a programme openly without receiving prior government approval ‘to test whether the government is sincere about its assurance of not arresting HuJi men’, said the HuJi source.

Some Afghan War veterans led by Abdus Salam officially launched HuJi through a press conference at the National Press Club on April 30, 1992 in Dhaka.

The HuJi leaders and activists went into hiding as the erstwhile Awami League government cracked down on them following an attack on recently departed noted poet Shamsur Rahman and an assassination attempt on Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina.

As the media ran several reports on the activities of HuJi, JMB banged to limelight by blasting bombs across the country, following which some of HuJi’s foreign fund providers cut-off their assistance.

“As we also came under a financial crisis, we failed to reorganise to openly hold our programmes,” said the source.

After the government had launched a crackdown on JMB, the HuJi leaders succeeded in convincing the government that none of their leaders and activists was involved in any kind of violence or militant activities.

They also told the government that a faction of HuJi men led by Mufti Hannan, who had been responsible for some violence, were expelled from the organisation in 1998.

Kazi Azizul Haque, who is also international affairs secretary of a faction of BKA, said he invited Afghan war veterans, who once had been involved with HuJi, to the rally. “But none of them has any criminal record and I also have been trying to make the government understand this for a long time.”

He said he informed the prime minister’s office, inspector general of police, commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, NSI, DGFI, other intelligence agencies and the media about last Friday’s rally.

“The government banned Harkatul Jihad of Mufti Hannan and Abdur Rouf, who had been expelled from the organisation long ago. The original HuJi was dissolved in 1998,” he claimed.

When he told the government that there was no problem in allowing the HuJi leaders to hold political activities openly, the government said it might arrest the leaders if they attempted to hold programmes openly as its image would be damaged by such activities, Azizul said.

“When I requested the government later not to arrest or harass any of the HuJi leaders, it assured me and said no one would be arrested if they didn’t have any criminal record,” he added.

Azizul, however, declined to disclose with whom of the government or the intelligence agencies he discussed the matter.

The BKA leader convened a news conference yesterday ‘to clear their position’ but cancelled it due to ‘unavoidable circumstances’. But sources said the home ministry pressured him to cancel the programme.

Leave a Reply