This page is dedicated to Prof Humayun Azad: academic, critic, linguist and poet, for his commitment to the demystification of the so-called Islamic politics of Jamat-e-Islami and like-minded extreme jihadi outfits (who are often ex-members of Jamat-e-Islami or its student organization Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir.

Blast at a Bangla New Year’s Fair in Dhaka in 2001. Screenshot from video

The onslaught on secular Intellectuals during 2001-04 (click here for 1971)

Stats of bombings carried out by the Jamati/Jihadi terrorists

List of secular Bangalees killed by Jamati/Jihadi terrorists

THE RETURN OF JAMAT-E-ISLAM

The idea that the Muslim-dominated parts of British India should become a separate country was articulated for the first time in a short essay written in 1933 by an Indian Muslim student at Cambridge, Rahmat Ali. He even proposed a name for the new state – Pakistan – which was an acronym based on the nations that would compose it: Punjab, Afghan (the Northwest Frontier), Kashmir, Indus (or Sindh) and Baluchistan. The new name also meant “the Land of the Pure.”

However, the acronym did not include India’s most populous Muslim province, East Bengal, and, at first, most Islamic groups opposed the idea of religious nationalism. The most prestigious Islamic university in the subcontinent, the Darul Uloom, was located at Deoband in Saharanpur district of what now is Uttar Pradesh in India, and its leaders strongly supported the Indian nationalist movement led by the Congress. The Jamat-e-Islami, which was founded in 1941 by Maulana Abul Ala Maududi and had grown out of the Deoband Madrassa (as the university became known) went to the extent of “alleging that the demand for a separate state based on modern selfish nationalism amounted to rebelling against the tenets of Islam.”

Key Jamati leaders

Top Jamatis are all war criminals of 1971: Gholam Azam, Saidi, Shaikhul Hadis, Amini, SAKA, Nizami & Mojahid. Click here for their criminal past.

But gradually, the Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, won support for the Pakistan idea, and when India became independent in August 1947, two states were born: the secular but Hindu-dominated Union of India – and the Islamic State of Pakistan, which consisted of two parts, one to the west of India and the other to the east. The Jamat became one of the strongest supporters of the Pakistan idea, and, somewhat ironically, the Deobandi movement through its network of religious schools, or madrassas, developed into a breeding ground for Pakistan-centered Islamic fundamentalism. Over the years, the Deobandi brand of Islam has become almost synonymous with religious extremism and fanaticism.

The Deobandis had actually arisen in British India not as a reactionary force but as a forward-looking movement to unite and reform Muslim society in the wake of oppression the community faced after the 1857 revolt, or “Mutiny” as the British called it. But in independent Pakistan – East and West – new Deobandi madrassas were set up everywhere, and they were run by semi-educated mullahs who, according to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, “were far removed from the original reformist agenda of the Deobandi school.”

Much later, it was from these madrassas Afghanistan’s dreaded Taliban (“Islamic Students”) were to emerge. The Jamat was from the beginning inspired by the Ikhwan ul-Muslimeen, or the Muslim Brotherhood, which was set up in Egypt in 1928 with the aim of bringing about an Islamic revolution and creating an Islamic state. When they had come to accept Pakistan as that Islamic state, Bengali nationalism was totally unacceptable. The Jamat’s militants fought alongside the Pakistan army against the Bengali nationalists. Among the most notorious of the Jamat leaders was Abdul Kader Molla, who became known as “the Butcher of Mirpur,” a Dhaka suburb which in 1971 was populated mainly by non-Bengali Muslim immigrants. Today, he is the publicity secretary of Bangladeshi Jamat, and, despite his background, was granted a US visa to visit New York in the last week of June 2002. In 1971, he and other Jamat leaders were considered war criminals by the first government of independent Bangladesh, but they were never prosecuted as they had fled to Pakistan.

The leaders of the Jamat returned to Bangladesh during the rule of Zia and Ershad because they were invited to come back, and they also saw Ershad especially as a champion of their cause. This was somewhat ironic as Ershad was – and still is – known as a playboy and hardly a religiously-minded person. But he had introduced a string of Islamic reforms – and he needed the Jamat to counter the Awami League, and, like his predecessor Zia, he had to find ideological underpinnings for what was basically a military dictatorship. The problem was that the Jamat had been discredited by its role in the liberation war – but, as a new generation emerged, that could be “corrected.” Jamat’s Islamic ideals were taught in Bangladesh’s madrassas, which multiplied at a tremendous pace. The madrassas fill an important function in an impoverished country such as Bangladesh, where basic education is available only to a few. Today, there are an estimated 64,000 madrassas in Bangladesh, divided into two kinds. The Aliya madrassas are run with government support and control, while the Dars-e-Nizami or Deoband-style madrassas are totally independent. Aliya students study for 15-16 years and are taught Arabic, religious theory and other Islamic subjects as well as English, mathematics, science and history. They prepare themselves for employment in government service, or for jobs in the private sector like any other college or university student. In 1999, there were 7,122 such registered madrassas in Bangladesh.

The much more numerous Deobandi madrassas are more “traditional”; Islamic studies dominate, and the students are taught Urdu (the national language of Pakistan), Persian and Arabic. After finishing their education, the students are incapable of taking up any mainstream profession, and the mosques and the madrassas are their main sources of employment. As Bangladeshi journalist Salahuddin Babar points out: “Passing out from the madrassas, poorly equipped to enter mainstream life and professions, the students are easily lured by motivated quarters who capitalize on religious sentiment to crate fanatics, rather than modern Muslims.”

The consequences of this kind of madrassa education can be seen in the growth of the Jamat. It did not fare well in the 1996 election, capturing only three seats in the parliament and 8.61% of the votes.16 Its election manifesto was also quite carefully worded, perhaps taking into consideration the party’s reputation and the fact that the vast majority of Bangladeshis remain opposed to Sharia law and other extreme Islamic practices. The 23-page document devoted 18 pages to lofty election promises, and only five to explaining Jamat’s political stand. The party tried to reassure the public that it would not advocate chopping off thieves’ hands, stoning of people committing adultery or banning interest – at least not immediately. According to the NGO SEHD: The priority focus would be the alleviation of poverty, stopping free mixing of sexes and thus awakening the people to the spirit of Islam and then eventually step by step the Islamic laws would be introduced.

It is impossible to determine how much support the Jamat actually had in the 2001 election as it was part of an alliance whose various members voted for each other against the Awami League, but its 17 seats in the new parliament – and two ministers in the government – suggest a dramatic increase. Its youth organization, Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), is especially active. It is a member of the International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations as well as the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and has close contacts with other radical Muslim groups in Pakistan, the Middle East, Malaysia and Indonesia. One of its main strongholds is at the university in Chittagong, and it dominates the Deobandi madrassas all over the country, from where it draws most of its new members. It has been implicated in a number of bombings and politically and religiously motivated assassinations.

On April 7, 2001, two leaders of the Awami League’s youth and student front were killed by ICS activists and on June 15, an estimated 21 people were killed and over 100 injured in a bomb blast at the Awami League party office in the town of Narayanganj. Two weeks later, the police arrested an ICS activist for his alleged involvement in the blast.18 A youngish Islamic militant, Nurul Islam Bulbul, is the ICS’s current president, and Muhammad Nazrul Islam its general secretary.

For many years the mother party, the Jamat, was led by Gholam Azam, who had returned from Pakistan when Zia was still alive and in power. He resigned in December 2000, and Motiur Rahman Nizami took over as the new Amir of the party amid wide protests and demands that he be put on trial for war crimes he committed during the liberation war as the head of a notorious paramilitary force, the Al-Badar. In one particular incident on December 3, 1971, some members of that force seized the village of Bishalikkha at night in search of freedom fighters, beating many and killing eight people. When Nizami’s appointment was made public, veterans of the liberation war burnt an effigy of him during a public rally. In October 2001, Nizami was appointed minister for agriculture, an important post in a mainly agricultural country such as Bangladesh. His deputy, Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid, became minister for social welfare. The terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001, occurred during the election campaign in Bangladesh when the country was ruled by a caretaker government. But the outgoing prime minister, the Awami League’s Sheikh Hasina, and then opposition leader Khaleda Zia of the BNP, condemned the attacks and both, if they were elected, offered the United States use of Bangladesh’s air space, ports and other facilities to launch military attacks against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Many Bangladeshis were moved by the loss of as many as 50 of their countrymen in the attacks on the World Trade Center. While some of them were immigrants working as computer analysts and engineers, most seem to have been waiters at the Window on the World restaurant who were working hard to send money back to poor relatives in Bangladesh. A Bangladeshi embassy official in Washington branded the attacks “an affront to Islam…an attack on humanity.” Jamat’s stand on the “war against terrorism,” however, contrasts sharply to that of the more established parties. Shortly after the US attacks on Afghanistan began in October 2001, the Jamat created a fund purportedly for “helping the innocent victims of America’s war.” According to the Jamat’s own announcements, 12 million Bangladeshi takas ($210,000) was raised before the effort was discontinued in March 2002. Any remaining funds, the Jamat then said, would go to Afghan refugees in camps in Pakistan.

Jamat-e-Islami of Bangladesh and the Regional Jihadi Networks

by Shahriar Kabir

Most national dailies of Bangladesh published on May 21, 2004, the gruesome photographic testimony of brutality of Bangla Bhai, the self-proclaimed militant fundamentalist, from greater Rajshahi area. The picture showed the dead body of Abdul Qayum Badshah (52) of the Raninagar of Naogaon district, hanging from the branch of a tree. It has been alleged that Badshah was a member of the Sarbahara Party. The Jihadi outfit, Jagrata Muslim Janata of Bangladesh (JMJB) brutally killed him and hung his dead body from a tree to warn the anti-fundamentalists of dire consequences that anyone opposing them.

Such grisly pictures were familiar during the liberation war of 1971. The Pakistani army used to kill the Bangladeshi freedom lovers and hung their dead bodies from the trees. They would at times hung them alive from the trees upside down and light fires below to roast living human beings. Alternatively, they skinned them alive while hanging. Again we saw such pictures in the Taliban’s Afghanistan. They killed pro-communist President Najibullah and hung his dead body publicly in Kabul. This was to demonstrate to their socialists and communist opponents what brutality the Mullah Omar’s Taliban were capable of. Now again after eight years, with Talibanist coalition Government of Bangladesh, we visited similar pictures of fundamentalist brutality.Three days after the publication of the vicious picture of hanging dead body of Badshah an appeal was published in Daily Janakantha, under the title, “ Aro asankhya gachhe asankhya lash jhule thakar aggei kichhu karun” (Please act before numerous more trees have innumerable more dead bodies hanging from them). This appeal was a letter from Shafiqpur High School’s Head Master Mahmud Musa, a victim himself, who wrote as follows:“I am the Head Master of Shafiqpur High School of Rani Nagar Sub-District, Naogaon District of North Bengal. My home is also in the same village. In the last fifteen years, I built this High School on own paternal property step by step, with the help of education loving public of the area and public representatives. With persistent personal effort, and in my small way, thus I had managed propagation of education in the area. On May 8th last the JMJB cadres attacked and razed to ground my four-roomed inherited paternal living quarters. This incident was published in various national dailies on May 16th, 2004. On the same day, another seventy houses were razed to the ground including that of another Head Master and an elected chairman. In these conditions, I and other members of my family have taken shelter in a nearby town. Before the tragedy of the destruction of our ancestral house and leaving the village could be absorbed, the JMJB cadres abducted my elder brother (Abdul Qayum Badshah) on Wednesday, May 19th. The next day they killed him after a public announcement in the microphone, all over the area. Later they hung his dead body from a roadside tree in the neighbouring Baman village, of Nandigram sub-district, of Bogra District. Newspaper readers have seen this picture on last May 21st. I heard that these butchers are looking for me. They will probably kill me with similar brutality and display my dead body if they can find me. I am also frequently hearing similar threats of life to other members of my family. Another brother of ours has stayed back in the village risking his life because it is now the harvesting time. They have once abducted him and after torturing him in their camp have let him go. Our family has a well- established reputation in the area. Our family has a tradition of association with progressive politics and culture. My father and brother both were established in the literature and social work in the area. We were also trying to perpetuate this tradition to the best of our ability. Probably that is now considered to be my family’s crime and mine.The state of Bangladesh has a government and an administration. The country has the police and an army. This area has an elected MP, who is a deputy minister. This district also has a responsible minister. There are many human rights organizations in this country. There is a civil society. There are a government and an opposition party. I want to earnestly appeal to all of them and their sense of responsibility and conscience. I want to let them know that a citizen and an ordinary teacher is now dangerously threatened and is at high risk of life. Would you not come to the aid of this teacher, who is a refugee from his own home with friends and family, due to danger to his life? Will none of you feel responsible enough to stop this medieval terror? Do these goons who have destroyed my home and killed my brother perpetrate it in my fate to continue to see horrors? Those who are not threatened today, how are they assured that they will not be threatened tomorrow? Who is giving them this assurance? Their silence today may turn too dangerous for tomorrow. It may be too late then. I appeal to the government, the administration and conscientious citizen – “ Please do something”. And please do it before you observe many more dead bodies dangle from roadside trees.” The writer of the above letter Mahmud Musa came to see me on 26th May. He came to inform me about the helplessness of his whole family. I asked him if his murdered brother was actually connected with the “Sarbahara Party”. Mahmud Musa said, “Maybe, but I do not know.” He stated, “Suppose my brother had done some crime, there is a government, police, a judicial court and law. If my brother was ordered hanged after the judicial procedure – I would have no complaint. But who is this Bangla Bhai? Is he the court or the government? By which law has he ordered the execution of my brother?” I asked Mahmud Musa if there were any pending cases against his brother with the police. The younger brother of the murdered confirmed that there were, some. But he claimed them to be all false cases. For example, he said there is a case with the date of crime 30/2/2000. Obviously there was never a 30th February. I asked him, what proof he had that Bangla Bhai’s JMJB had killed his brother. Musa said they (JMJB) have themselves announced and the newspapers have carried this in their report. Bangla Bhai’s 2nd in command Hemayet Hussain Himu, Jamat Amir (a leading position of Jamat-e-Islami party) of Raninagar sub-district. Muffajjal Hussain and Jamat’s former worker Abul Master lead a JMJB armed gang which abducted Badshah and three others. They have hung the dead body of Badshah on a roadside tree, the other three are still missing. I asked Mahmud Musa further whether they have filed a case (FIR) in the police station. He said, “No, not yet.” Badshah’s family is out of the area due to the militant acts of Bangla Bhai. He himself is unable to go back to his village. Additionally, police do not accept complaints against Bangla Bhai.

Police’s refusal to accept complaints against Bangla Bhai is very normal. It is published in the newspapers that the Police O.C. follows around as bodyguard of Bangla Bhai, the militant fundamentalist leader. The district A.S.P., the divisional D.I.G. are also the protectors of Bangla Bhai, hence in the greater Rajshahi area, there is no one with enough courage to complain against Bangla Bhai. Then he revealed why the fundamentalists were mad at his family. Their family is a politically conscious family of the area. Family wise they have been associated with left movements and he once was a member of left-oriented National Awami Party of Bangladesh. Badshah and Musa’s father Abdul Kader was a participant of the Tebhaga movement. Ila Mitra personally knew Abdul Kader. His grandfather Sakim Sardar and great grandfather Kasim Sardar were known to Rabindra Nath Tagore and had hearty relation with him. Patisar, the famous Tagore Zamindari, skirts Raninagar area. In Ahmed Rafiq’s research paper on Tagore, there is a description of Rabindranath’s friendly relations with Kasim Sardar of Raninagar. In their family, they still learn and practice Rabindra Sangeet. They also have a tradition of reading modern literature. They had family relations with Ismail Hussain Siraji. The books that police party confiscated from their house included books by Aroj Ali Matobbar and Ahmad Safa. Musa said JMJB did not allow this year’s Rabindra Jayanti celebration at Patisar. They said, “You can’t sing Rabindra Sangeet – you have to sing Hamd and Naa’t.”Musa does not know when they will be able to go back to their home, destroyed by Bangla Bhai. Due to the terrorist activities of militant Bangla Bhai, hundreds of people have left the area. This has been admitted by Maolana Abdur Rahman, JMJB’s Amir and spiritual guru of Bangla Bhai. In an interview with Asaduzzaman Samrat of Ajker Kagoj, Maolana Rahman explained that in the greater Rajshahi area, in seven sub-districts, in this task of suppressing ‘the Sarbaharas’ they had active cooperation of Post and Telecommunication Minister Barrister Aminul Haq, Housing and PWD Deputy Minister Alamgir Kabir, Land Minister Ruhul Quddus Talukdar Dulu and member of Parliament Nadim Mustafa. In Bagmara, where their activities are at the peak, even MP Abu Hena is not opposing their action. They are getting full cooperation with the administration. He said there is widespread support among ordinary people of the area. In a short time, they have arrested fifty people and found a huge amount of weapons. More than five thousand Sarbahara have surrendered. (Ajker Kagoj, 13 May 2004). The atrocities of Bangla Bhai, under the shelter of two BNP ministers, three MPs and Police have become so widespread that he has not been bothered by the arrest warrant ordered by the Prime Minister (before her departure for China). He is very safely and openly moving around in the area, without any cover. On May 23rd last Bangla Bhai’s stormtroopers have marched in Rajshahi under police protection and displayed their arms. They came to the city riding on hundreds of motorcycles and mini-buses and submitted a memorandum to the administration. The police officers have congratulated the so-called Jihad of Bangla Bhai against the Sarbahara group.The militant activities of self-styled militant fundamentalist Ajijur Rahman, aka Siddiqul Islam, aka “Bangla Bhai”’ are being published in Bangladeshi national daily newspapers again since April 1st week of this year. In August of last year, militant fundamentalist organization Jamiatul Mujaheddin (JM)’s members were in the limelight, when they attacked police to decamp with arms, ammunitions and the wireless sets. At that time reportage on their activities continued for about 20/21 days. In January of 1999, militant fundamentalist organization Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami’s (HUJI) killers were in the news when they attacked poet Shamsur Rahman at his home. At that time Dhaka newspapers serially published a story of their fundamentalist militant activities. But the present coverage of Bangla Bhai’s JMJB is more widely covered. The organization was once secret and after a few arrests – the reportage subsided. This time however the reportage is continuing even after eight to nine weeks and will not subside till fundamentalist militant Bangla Bhai is arrested and JMJB banned.In 1999 and in 2003 we were stunned and frightened to know the countrywide militant fundamentalist network of HUJI and JM, respectively. Like the underground tunnel network of a sly fox, the network of these militant organizations is spread all over the country. The reason JMJB is getting more reportage is: HUJI and JM are not open organizations, but JMJB, is. Hadn’t HUJI’s potential killers were not caught on January 18, 1999, while trying to kill poet Shamshur Rahman, we would not have known about their presence in Bangladesh. Initially, only three were captured who admitted their association with HUJI. Later, based on their admission police arrested another forty-eight person of which one was South African and another Pakistani. All these facts have been published in various national newspapers.On 24th January 1999, Daily Ittefaq had published, based on an investigative report, that twenty-eight other prominent artists, poets and novelists were on the hit list of HUJI. In a publication, Afghan Atlas, published from Nebraska University, USA an important research paper states, “ bin Laden has ISI’s logistics and intelligence support. HUJI and quite a few of Pakistan’s militant organizations have a connection to bin Laden. HM has a connection with Dhaka based Jihadi Islami, the organization whose assignment is to recruit Bangladeshi and Indian Muslims to fight in Kashmir.” At that time the Pakistani citizen Mohammad Sajjid and South African Ahmed Sadeq Ahmed had admitted to police that bin Laden had given them two crore Taka ( more than 300,000 US dollars) to build a Taliban-style militant group in Bangladesh. This money they had spent via 821 madrassas. (Reuters, Jan 28, 1999).In spite of such concrete proof, police submitted such weak charge sheet, that the superior court criticized police for weak charge sheet. It has been seen in the last seven years that whether it is JM or HUJI – police arrested them when there are hue and cry in the newspapers – later they submitted such weak charge sheets that criminals were let go or released on bail. There is never any problem for them to get out of jail. Last year the militant cadre of JM, who were arrested red-handed with arms and seditious pamphlets, they had no problem to get out of jail on April 2nd of this year. The present Inspector General of Police has been alleged to be a collaborator of the genocidal Pakistani army of 1971 and the current Home Secretary is known to have a Jamat connection. Thus it can be clearly surmised why to arrest or keep in custody the militant fundamentalists or to judiciously run the criminal cases against them is not on cards for the Khaleda-Nizami government. Whenever there has been any allegation against any activities of the militant fundamentalists, immediately the Jamat-e-Islami chief and Industries Minister of the coalition government Matiur Rahman Nizami states that Jamat has no relation with militant fundamentalists. On last 24th May, he again stated in a news conference, “Jamat does not have any relation with so-called JMJB or Bangla Bhai. Jamat does not have any relation with Hijbut Tahrir, Hijbut Tawheed, JM or similar organizations.“ (Janakantha, 25th May 2004). On the same day at a news conference sponsored by Ekatturer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee( EGDNC) and South Asia People’s Union Against Fundamentalism and Communalism, Professor Kabir Choudhury said, “On January of this year in Sylhet, at Hazrat Shah Jalal’s Mazar, there was bombing and five persons were killed. In February, the powerful voice against fundamentalism, Professor Humayun Azad was attacked with a machete and he survived narrowly. Again on May 21, at the same Mazar of Hazrat Shah Jalal, an attempt was made on the life of the newly-appointed British High Commissioner to Bangladesh. In this attack, another three persons were killed and nearly a hundred were injured. Even though the British High Commissioner survived the attempt on his life, he is still in the hospital. Even though the investigative reporters of Bangladesh’s national dailies found a member of the coalition Jamat-e-Islami responsible for the terrorist act, the coalition government, in an attempt to protect Jamat, has taken no action.”The US Asst. Secretary of State Christina Rocca expressed displeasure about the activities of Bangla Bhai, during her 3-day visit to Bangladesh, on May 18th, last. She asked Jamat leader Matiur Nizami about Bangla Bhai’s whereabout. (Janakantha, 20th May 2004). Obviously, before coming to Bangladesh she must have done her homework on the related information and documents of proof in this regard. If Bangla Bhai did not have any relation with Jamat, Ms Rocca would not have asked Nizami about this issue, since the issue is not about his Industries Ministry, but his party Jamat-e-Islami. No one else is expected to know better than Nizami in this regard. The chief of Jamat is an influential member of the present cabinet. Thus there is no possibility asking Nizami under arrest and oath about his party’s relation to JMJB, Jamiatul Mujaheddin or other militant organizations of Bangladesh. If such a hypothetical scenario ever happens, the close links between Nizami’s Jamat-e-Islami and the Islamic extremist organizations would have been divulged in a second. In August of last year, JM militants had a clash with police and a few were arrested, Jamat, as usual, said they had no connection with Jamat. Again on May 20th of this year, Nizami repeated the same story to Ms Rocca. But in last August all Bangladeshi newspapers had published reports about the relation between Jamat and Jamiatul Mujaheddin. When police raided the house of Montajurul Islam, the chief accused of Khetlal militant attack, the documents they found not only had distinct proof of Jamat connection to JM but also to al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Also in August of 2003, three books written by Maulana Masud Azhar were found in the Jamiatul Mujaheedin office in Jaipurhat. Pakistan based Jaish-e Muhammad‘s commander Masud Azhar’s name flashed across the newspaper headlines in the sub-continent in December of 1999 when Indian Airlines flight number IC 414 was hijacked. The Islamic extremists hijacked the passenger plane to Afghanistan with a primary demand to release the militant leader Masud Azhar. The Indian government was forced to release him to meet the demand of the hijackers. When he was arrested in India he had submitted in his deposition the following facts: He was born in Bhawalpur in Pakistan on July 10th, 1968. His father was a Deobandi type, a strictly religious person. He joined Harkatul Mujaheddin (HM) during his student days and went to Afghanistan as a Jihadi per instruction of the organizational head Maolana Fajlur Rahman Khalil. In 1993 catching an Air Emirate flight he flew into Dhaka, Bangladesh accompanied by Sajjad Afghani. Then he went to Karachi but Sajjad Afghani went to India. In January 1998 he again came to Bangladesh, on a Portuguese passport, to enter India. On January 29th he boarded a Bangladesh Biman flight to New Delhi. In February, on his way from Delhi to Srinagar, he was arrested. (www.stratmag.com/issue2nov-15/kargil.html me of Khetlal terrorist attack, Jamat declared, that the principal accused Montajurul Islam was expelled from their party two years earlier. But according to published newspaper reports Montajurul had applied for becoming Roqan (Jamat-e-Islami’s senior hierarchical position) of the Jamat and these papers were found by the police. While Police is not admitting publicly to the news reporters any connection between Jamat and JM, they admit that diaries found in the terrorist hideouts provide a full list of workers and leaders of Jamat and Shibir.“…The following were also found during the search there: a. Election leaflets of Abbas Ali Khan, ex-Amir of Jamat. b. An application for monetary help from Sirajul Islam, a local Beniapara madrassa student to the Jamat funding organization Baitul Maal. 3. A Baniapara Ahmedia Madrassa receipt book for donations received. 4. A copy of Dhaka’s Bengali daily Bhrorer Kagoj dated February 13, 1995. The newspaper had the headlines in Bengali: “Rajshahi University declared closed – two dead in Chhatradal- Shibir clash – more than 150 injured. “After the militant-police confrontation, police informed that in the hideout they also found: 1. Many books and publications belonging to Jamat and Shibir. 2. Monogrammed diaries of many Shibir activists. The recent full day’s investigation has yielded that the building where the militants had congregated for training was owned by Jamiatul Mujaheddin leader Montajurul Islam. In the concerned area, processions were taken out under the leadership of Montajurul, more than a months before January 20, 2003, brutal murder of five persons in the Pir place of Begunbari sub-district. He had openly declared in these rallies that they would oppose and annihilate any anti-Islamic activity in the area, soon after which the brutal murders were conducted. The absconding militant leader was seen in the open, hobnobbing with the Jamat leaders and was also actively building armed JM organization. Many sources in the area inform that he regularly trained more than 100 persons military and guerrilla tactics and warfare, in his private compound. Additionally, letters have been found which clearly establishes Jamat and Jamiatul Mujaheedin connections. In this letter district Jamat secretary, Abdul Matin Sardar had given Montajurul Islam a significant number of organizational directives. (see Bhorer Kagaj, 20th August 2003). In all Dhaka newspapers including prestigious “Daily Star”, “Prothom Alo” and “Janakantha”, in their investigative reports have stated that the Bangla Bhai’s, JMJB is the open manifestation of banned organization JM.It has been noticed that whenever the government is under pressure from donor nations they ban the fundamentalist organizations and arrest some of their operatives. Then soon after the banned organizations and operatives resurface under a different name, with the same activities. The jailed activists are soon released, as usual. The jailed militants came out of prison on April 2nd, 2004. The same day’s Janakantha carried the news that in Rajshahi, under police protection, the militants attacked and mercilessly butchered a person named Babu, who was allegedly a Sarbahara activist. They shouted slogans like, ” Nara e Takbir, Alla ho Akbar.” Since then for the next eight weeks, the news of Bangla Bhai’s of JMJB has been reported in Bengali media with a clear reference of the organization’s link with Jamat and Afghan Taleban. The brother of Badshah,(the Hanging dead body of May 21), Mr. Mahmud Musa informed that Jamat’s Raninagar Amir, Mufajjal Hussain was in the team of Badshah’s abductors.In the long sixty-three years of Jamat-e-Islami’s history, there is no example of any of their leaders ever accepting the blame/responsibility for any of their misdeeds. In 1953 Jamat’s Chief Maududi was charged with the murder of thirty thousand innocent Ahmadiya in Pakistan’s Lahore, after a riot in which that many had lost their lives. Maududi was prosecuted, proven guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Yet until today, Jamat has not acknowledged that they were responsible for the massacre of innocents. During Bangladesh’s war of independence, Jamat-e-Islami’s militant wings like Razakar, Al Badr and Al-Shams were formed simply to assist Pakistan army’s perpetration of genocide, which they did in the name of protection of Islam. They tortured and murdered the freedom fighters and intellectuals in large numbers, which were published in their own party paper“Daily Sangram”. Now, however, they say that they were not involved in those murders but Awami League was. I had retorted to this blatant lie in a BBC interview. I stated that if we had to assume that Nizami or Jamat was not involved in the preparation of the list of intellectuals till the last days of 1971’s Bangladesh liberation war, then we had to assume that Nizami was an Awami League activist in 1971. In that context, we were supposed to believe that “Daily Sangram” was the party paper of Awami League. This is the same daily, which published vivid details of many massacres by Al Badr of freedom fighters with glowing tributes. And lastly, Nizami himself wrote many columns to inspire Al Badr cadres to kill the freedom fighters, in this ignoble newspaper.There is a commonality of purpose between the Nizamis and the JMJB, JM and other Islamist fascist outfits. Every one of them has a goal to establish an “Islamic state” in Bangladesh like the one under the Taliban in Afghanistan, with a Koran and Shari’a-based law. Where is the difference between Jamat and these militants, in goal and ideal? It is now quite evident the main pillars of Jamat’s politics are: lies, deception and slyness. When Matiur Rahman Nizami says that he and Al Badr have no connection with 1971’s mass murder of the Bangladeshi intellectuals, or Bangla Bhai or Montajurul have no connection with Jamat – the lies became very glaring and self-evident. If everything is false then why does police look for Shibir activists after the bomb attack on the British High commissioner, at Shah Jalal’s Mazar in Sylhet? Why did Christina Rocca ask Nizami, and not others, “What about the whereabouts of Bangla Bhai?”According to psychologists, continuous lying develops into a type of mental disorder. Nizami is so much overtaken by this disorder that soon a day may come when Nizami would say, “I have no relation with Jamat” or maybe– “I am not Nizami.” Nizamis may think that the people of Bangladesh are fools, as they perceived them in 1971. They claimed then that without Pakistan there would be no trace of Islam in the face of the earth. In 1971, the people of Bangladesh, buried Pakistan, the beloved land of Nizami and his likes, to create Bangladesh. In 1971 also Jamat had a two-member representation in the cabinet and they jubilantly performed all the murders and atrocities. They are repeating the story, now, again. Had anyone in March 1971 envisioned that the burial of Pakistan and Jamat would have been conducted only nine months later, in these very banks of Buri Ganga in Dhaka? The Dhaka of 1971 is now a metropolis. The progeny of the three million martyrs and this old city are waiting eagerly and are counting the days for the upcoming disaster of Jamat.

Shahriar Kabir is a writer and a human rights activist in Bangladesh

Taliban Factory

What does “Taliban” mean? Taliban is an Arabic word that is a plural form of the word student who studies Holy Koran and Hadiths. Afghani Taliban, the pure (Pukka) Muslims on earth, existed for several years after Mohamed. We are so lucky; we had a great chance to see some fresh Muslims a few years ago. These warm-blooded Muslims are gently trained and boosted by their spiritual masters in the factories. The biggest Taliban factories are the Arab-based “Madrasahs,” which are scattered throughout the Islamic kingdoms. Likewise, there are thousands of Taliban factories in the West. But, because of the western influences, the factories turn into a small size that can be called “the mini Taliban factory.” The question is, “where are the factories located in the lands of Kafirs?” These mini-factories are nowhere but in many Masques, Islamic Learning Centers, and reserved rooms in universities & colleges. There is another question left, that is, “then who are the mini Taliban in the West?” The simple answer for that question is: the mini Taliban are the devout Muslims and hard-core Islamists who smoothly get energized in the mini-factories.

Since I almost grew up in North America, please let me focus on its territories where I know hundreds of Muslims who are from around the world. I often talk to many Muslims and Islamists on the phone, and I sometimes meet them in their residences, Islamic Learning Centers, Masques, and many other places. Whenever I talk and meet them, I always discover a 100% identical idea from almost all Muslims. Therefore, I get to know what most Muslims think and try to do. I never, however, get to hear from the factories about any progressive work that could be beneficial for USA or Canada. Today, I will be discussing the roles and ultimate goals of the mini Taliban for North America (the USA and Canada). Now let’s see some of their (the mini Taliban) functions.

The roles:
a) Duties in the schools:
While attending in the universities and colleges, mostly international and newly immigrated Muslim students (basically from the Middle East and Pakistan) build a “Muslim Association” beside their educations where the first job is to hunt down all Muslim names from the school catalogues (if possible) or any source. The devoted Muslim students do not hesitate to go up to the people who are like Middle Eastern & East Indian and have kind of dark or brown skin colour. Then those Muslim students ask people’s full name. If the names sound like Muslim names, they try to pick,
and they invite and want the fellows to join the Muslim Association. When the loyal Muslim students obtain Muslim names, phone numbers, and addresses from the new people, they make a well-patterned list. And then the Muslim students book a room or mini hall room in the Kaffirs’ universities and colleges for the Islamic performances and rituals where they invite other Muslims and Islamists.

b) Duties in both schools and other places:
Islamists advise every Muslim keeping 1000 feet away from Jews and not hanging out with the infidels, such as host Canadians and Americans.  Islamists want Muslim women to use Islamic dress code “Borkha (veil).” Islamists suggest that all Muslim children should be raised in a 100% Islamic way. If any person is a Jewish nominee, the Islamists produce and pass significant advice to the listed or known Muslims not to vote a Jew. It does not matter whether the candidate is a good person or not, but his or her religion i.e. Judaism is very important to most Muslims. Islamists ask all possible Muslims not to buy meats from the Kaffirs’ stores like Safeways, Superstores, Loblaws, etc. because the fresh and hygienic meats are considered “Haram.” Hard-core Islamists in the group particularly focus on Coca Cola, MacDonald’s, and KFC to quit them because they are American products. As well, Islamists frequently discuss to leave all types of American and British products, mostly American ones. It seems to be so funny to me that any Muslim or civilized person can never be able to quit US and UK products. Islamists and other Muslims evaluate the problems for only Kashmiri, Palestinian, and other Muslim brothers and sisters. Islamists hand out the Salat and fasting schedules to the Muslims as many as possible. I appreciate this work.

Some of the Muslim students and young Islamists know computer programming (Kaffirs’ one of the greatest inventions). Thus, they make hundreds of Islamic programs, mini software, and files (like Islamic miracles, lucky words, etc.), and then they send and forward these Islamic computing-products via e-mails to the Muslim name holder people. Young-adult Islamists and Muslim students are so excited as well. They do not wait even for a second to build hundreds of Islamic websites to brag out Islam is a good and true religion.

Some questions to consider:
1) In the universities and colleges, is any “Muslim Association” concerned about the improvement of the schools, or do these organizations usually participate in the school-development programs? The answer is negative. No usual evidence can be found from the university or college student unions. 2) Do the “Muslim Associations” and other Islamists ever discuss the progress of the USA or Canada where they live? OOO!! Never.
3) Do Islamists feel sympathy and talk over in the Masques and Islamic Centers or anywhere when some Canadian or US soldiers die in any war? Impossible!! That is not Islamic. 4) Do Islamists or the devout Muslims ever protest for the Muslim women and non-Muslims when they are in the Islamic paradises the second and third-class citizens respectively? NO!!! But, yes, Islamists raise their voice to upgrade Islam in the USA and Canada without any challenge. 5) Do Islamists or Muslims ever pray to Allah for the Kaffir officers who granted visa and immigration papers
for the USA or Canada??? HMM!! Never heard a good response from any Muslim so far. 6) Do Islamists or Muslims ever pray for the Kaffirs in every Salat (prayer) in the Masques which are at least granted and partially funded by the Kaffirs or infidels, Jews, Christians, and so on? The Answer is big “NO.” 7) Did Islamists pray in the North American Masques for the innocent Kaffir people who died in 11-September tragedy? Oops!! Nope!! (Now the whole world knows Allah’s best code of life and how He teaches.) 8) Do Islamists or their organizations participate for any national and social work which they (Islamists) at least should do as residents or citizens of the USA or Canada? I do not think they do. (I find most Muslims busy in the Masques and Islamic Centers discussing Islam and Muslim brotherhood mostly at the weekend and on the statutory holidays. I was amazed on Remembrance Day, 2003 when I went to a big Masque in X area. I found not a single Muslim ever pronounced a single word for those who fought and died in WW2. All I heard was the same stories of Islam and brotherhood).

Please consider these also:
Do all types of Muslims (mostly under 40) from every Islamic country prefer to settle in North America? Of Course!
2. Do many Muslims even want to pay thousands of dollars for the fake visas or passports just to get to North America? YES.
3. Do Islamists or Muslims want citizenship from the USA and Canada? Of Course! YES, who wants to miss this opportunity?
4. Is it true that Islamists or Muslims or whoever needs to take OATH in order to receive citizenship for the Kaffir lands USA or Canada? YES.
5. Is it a national threat or offence if any guest citizens violet the oath that they took by raising the right hand? YES.
6. Do any work by the Islamists or Muslims that you have already read look like they are with the interest of USA or Canada? NO. I do not think at all.
7. Do the Islamists or Muslims want to install Islam in the USA and Canada? YES. Absolutely. No doubt of it. Do they want and expect to rule the USA and Canada as per Allah’s true words? YES. So, do those Islamists or Muslims break the words which they (Islamists) promise to US or Canadian government? YESSSS.

Now, can’t I (or any sane person) say that Islamists or most Muslims are betraying and cheating the US or Canadian govt. by dishonouring the oath? Then, can’t those Islamists or Muslims be called “betrayers?” Dear readers please go ask any Islamists or devout Muslims who reside in the USA and Canada whether they want the Islamic light (Noor) or not where they live. I bet my bottom dollar, all of them spontaneously reply you, “YES, OF COURSE, WHY NOT?” Here it is! Islamists or most Muslims have a higher expectation to get united and make a huge Ummah to establish Allah’s best code of life in USA and Canada.

Well, let’s see some of the Islamic symbols if these were imposed in the USA and Canada by the betrayers. In general, primarily, the following things we might expect to experience: 1) All white and other ladies will be forced to use Borkhas (veils) leaving skirts, tight jeans, shorts etc. Also, no lady can ever show her beauty to the guys as per the Islamic rules. 2) All white and other ladies can not work in the workplaces and attend in the class rooms with boys. 3) All white and other ladies will not be able to go out of their home and hang out on the streets without any guy. If so, ladies will receive some Islamic rewards like “lashings (Dorrah).” 4) Openly, liquor stores will not survive. 5) Hopefully, Mohamed’s language Arabic will be the prime language rather than Kaffirs’ language English and French (French i.e. in QB and NB, Canada). 6) FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) in the USA will turn into IBA, that is, Islamic Bureau of Investigation, and RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) in Canada will become ICMP i.e. Islam Canadian Mounted Police. ICMP will act like “Muttawallee” (a special type of police force that is to look after and impose Islamic laws to the common people). 7) Canada’s head of state is Queen Elizabeth 2; after the Islamic revolution, Allah will be the head of state of USA and Canada.8) Islamists will build Masque at every block. As a result, we will hear loud Azan (prayer call) 5 times a day, 365 days a year. As well as, Islamic reciting (Khutba, Koran Teloat) will often reach to our ears beside loud Azan. (All of these exist in the Islamic soils). 9) Islamists will flood with full Madrasahs, Islamic Learning Centers, Tablighs (meeting) Centers, and Majar Sharifs (e.g. Ajmir Sharif in India) as well. 10) Islamists will never authorise any organisations like NASA that plays with Allah’s mystery of the universe and makes Muslims’ holy moon dirty. 11) I hope Islamists will NEVER tolerate Hollywood, so Islamists will instantly terminate it.12) Financial institutions that offer credit card, mortgage, lease etc. will be eliminated by the Islamists because these financial products depend 100% on interest. Interest is Haram in Islam. 13) Islamists will soon drive out the Haram food items which are made of Haram pork like bacon, sausage, pepperoni, and so forth. 14) Islamic butchers will be ready to invade all meat firms to slaughter animals in the name of Allah to make meats 100% Halal. 15) Islamists will never allow semi-naked women in the lakes, sea beaches, and swimming pools. So, the sun-bath process, swimming, etc. in the USA and Canada will permanently be locked for women.

In fact, there are lots more things to write. I think, for today, I shall not continue anymore. For the rest, you readers can take a guess. The mini Taliban factories in the west vigorously encourage the Muslims to get united and invade the West by Islam. Eventually, what would be then if USA and Canada got Islamized? North America would become like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and former Talibani Afghanistan. Am I dead wrong? Dear readers, if you are Muslims and live in the continent of USA or Canada, please honestly tell us- do you support the mini Taliban and want them to launch the pure Islam in North America?

Click here for information on Jamat-e-Islam as an ORGANIZATION