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Murders test Bangladesh claims radicals are in check
An Italian aid worker became the fifth person to be killed this year in attacks claimed by extremist groups.
- PUBLISHED: Fri 2 Oct 2015, 5:19 PM UPDATED: Fri 2 Oct 2015, 10:58 PM
- By:
- AP
A string of slayings claimed by radical groups has Bangladesh scrambling to contain what appears to be a rising tide of extremism, and it couldn't have come at a worse time - the country's fragile economic growth is faltering this year amid renewed political unrest.
The secular South Asian nation - traditionally moderate even if unstable at times - has repeatedly insisted it has religious radicalism in check and is maintaining peace among its 160 million people. That claim was severely tested last week after an Italian aid worker became the fifth person to be killed this year in attacks claimed by extremist groups.
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A foreigner being gunned down in the country's capital is bad news for Bangladesh, whose economy is heavily reliant on a $25 billion garment industry that produces clothing and fashion wear for international brands including Zara, Benetton and Gap.
Hassan Shariar, a well-known political commentator and columnist, said even though the government won't acknowledge it, there clearly are pockets of radicals in the country.
"I don't know why intelligence (agencies) failed to understand that things are going out of control," he said. "It is clearly evident that they are failing to contain it with an iron hand."
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been cracking down on extremists. Police have arrested dozens of suspected members of various hardline militant groups in recent years, including six that have been banned.
Still, the violence has continued. In February, when cleaver-wielding attackers killed an atheist writer and blogger, US citizen Avijit Roy, authorities called it a random, isolated incident executed by religious fanatics.
Then it happened again. And again. And again.
In total, four bloggers and online activists - all critics of radicalism - have been hacked to death with meat cleavers in daytime attacks. A hit list of 84 bloggers including many living in Europe and the United States has appeared online, allegedly posted by the Ansarullah Bangla Team - the same banned militant group that claimed responsibility or involvement in killing the bloggers.
Bangladesh intelligence officials have refused to confirm the list as a threat, saying it could not be independently verified, though they arrested two of the group's leaders in Dhaka last month.
Then on Monday, three motorcycle-riding assailants gunned down the Italian aid worker, Cesare Tavella, in the diplomatic quarter of Dhaka. The extremist group Daesh claimed responsibility and vowed more such killings in Muslim-majority countries.
The government dismissed the Daesh claim, saying there was no evidence. It described the killing as an "isolated incident."
"There is no existence of the Daesh here," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said on Tuesday.
Police raids on suspected militant hideouts have been a hallmark of Hasina's government. Some of the banned groups' leaders are behind bars and on trial, while Hasina's allies accuse the country's main Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, of backing the groups from a distance.
A court revoked the party's registration in 2013, effectively barring it from contesting elections. But it continues to be allied with the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.
Proscribing Jamaat-e-Islami has alienated many of its followers and "pushed Islamists to the edge," said Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, a former Indian ambassador to Bangladesh. He noted that Bangladesh also has a large number of madrasas, or Islamic schools, largely funded by foreign countries and running their own religious curriculum. "The madrasas are radicalising the youth, who can't find jobs after their religious studies and they are being recruited by extremist elements," he said.
Police have arrested about a dozen people suspected in the bloggers' murders, including two students of Islamic schools who said they were ordered by "someone" to carry out a killing in March, officials said. - AP