During January 7 election, Bangladesh voters reject religious bigots

Possibly for the first time in the history of democracy in Bangladesh, voters have rejected religious bigots, Islamists and Caliphate-mongers, while they have given a landslide victory to secularist Awami League by 222 seats out of 300 in the parliament. One of the most significant aspect of the January 7general election is the case of Jatiya Party, a political force established by military dictator Gen Hussain Muhammad Ershad who had by force made constitutional amendment to give Islam the status of state religion. By doing to, Gen Ershad has murdered the secularist nature of the constitution of Bangladesh, which certainly was a deplorable act. Furthermore, Gen Ershad also attempted to give Bangladesh a similar pattern of Islamist Pakistan. Although such attempts by Ershad began months after the assassination of hie predecessor – military dictator Maj Gen Ziaur Rahman, as Zia not only began the process of Islamization of Bangladesh, he had notoriously cultivated, promoted and encouraged anti-India and anti-Hindu sentiment in Bangladesh. Gen Zia was repeatedly saying – “existence of Bangladesh depends on continuous and consistent confrontation with India”. This truly was a dangerous agenda, where Zia had let various insurgency groups in Bangladesh use its soil in continuing terrorist and subversive activities against India.

Military dictator Gen Ershad had carried forward Zia’s vicious agenda of Islamization and confrontation with India. Should he succeed, by now Bangladesh would have become another rogue state like Pakistan. In this case, what is extremely essential to note is – both BNP and Jatiya Party are ultra-Islamist as well as India and Hindu hating forces. Moreover, according to documented facts, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which has been termed Tier-III terrorist organization by US courts is purely a terrorist organization – not only by perception, but through its deeds.On August 21, 2004, BNP attempted to assassinate Awami League president Sheikh Hasina through grenade attacks by joining hands with Al Qaeda connected Harkat–ul–Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B). Subsequently, the party was also caught red-handed when 10-trucks loaded weapons, ammunitions and explosives were seized in Bangladesh where it was later revealed that this consignment was supposed to be supplied to United Liberation Front of Assom (ULFA), a militancy outfit in northeastern part of India. It is assumed, before this massive consignment was incidentally busted by the law enforcement agencies, BNP might have sent such consignments to UKFA during its 2001-2006 tenure.

However, BNP’s acting chairman Tarique Rahman was later handed two life sentences by courts in Dhaka for his involvement in August 21 grenade attacks and his active role in supplying weapons, ammunitions and explosives to ULFA. For the past 16 years, Tarique Rahman is living in the United Kingdom as an asylum-seeker skipping legal consequences in Bangladesh.