Bangladesh’s opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its notorious ally Jamaat-e-Islami announced that they could seize state power by re-staging a 1975-type massacre, India-based media outlet IANS reports citing intelligence officials.
In the last few months, several BNP leaders have publicly threatened to re-stage 1975, referring to the darkest chapter of Bangladesh when the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was brutally killed along with most of his family members. BNP was founded after the assassination and its founder Ziaur Rahman has been alleged to be a silent conspirator.
Indian Intelligence sources have told IANS that another possible plan is to re-stage October 28 like arson on the streets in the country. In 2006, BNP-Jamaat workers, brandishing firearms and sticks, attacked Awami League (AL) activists on the streets of the capital, triggering deadly clashes that resulted in the loss of several lives.
Spokesperson of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Faruk Hussain told IANS, “We will surely do our job to ensure people find the city safe and will also thwart any attempt to derail the public safety.”
BNP’s increasing violent rhetoric
Abdul Kader Bhuiyan, Secretary of BNP’s Swecchasebak Dal recently threatened PM Sheikh Hasina with “a repeat of 1975”.
“Take up arms and restage another 1975,” Bhuiyan said. However, with no top BNP leader publicly offering any apology for Bhuiyan’s open and unambiguous call to violence, his statement signifies a tacit endorsement from the party leadership to go for an attempted violent overthrow of the Hasina government.
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Wednesday said that the BNP is waiting to grab power in the final victory, led by party’s acting leader Tarique Rehman.
“Fight on the streets… we’re ready to face it…,” Alamgir chanted to hundreds of people vowing to upstage the Hasina led government.
BNP is now waging movement by staging widespread terror under the leadership of Tarique Rahman, who has been convicted in a number of cases including money laundering and colluding with ULFA and Lashkar-e-Taiba militants, smuggling in arms and ammunition and the grenade attack to assassinate Sheikh Hasina.
AL central leader Aminul Islam said to the IANS that there is an emerging rift within the BNP with many leaders now in open rebellion against the party leadership.
“It is one of the reasons, the Tarique loyalists in BNP, have shifted focus on flaring up the violence in the streets,” Islam said, reports IANS.
BNP may have another plan to restage 21 August like attack to oust PM Hasina.
BNP’s Past Sponsorship of Terrorism
In an interview with India Today on 23 February 2023, retired Deputy Director General of India’s Defence Intelligence Agency, Major General Gaganjit Singh said that a huge consignment of weapons — 10 trucks full of arms — was seized at Bangladesh’s Chittagong in April 2004. It was meant for the United Liberation Front of Asam and a few other rebel groups in India’s northeast to destablise Bangladesh, reports IANS.
Singh said that the arms supply was done through the alliance between the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami.
Tarique’s other handpicked loyalist, Lutfuzzaman Babar, who had served as state Minister for Home between 2001 and 2006 is now facing trial for having links with militants.
Tarique has also exposed his support for the dreaded militant Bangla Bhai. “Lutfozzaman Babar never helped to control the militant outfits. In fact, he asked for all the police and administrative support in organizing a vigilante militant group called JMB led by extremist Bangla Bhai in the northern districts,” the then IGP Nur Mohammad, said during an interview in June 2007.
Since 2009, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) along with its extremist allies Jamaat-E-Islami and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, have developed a brand of politics characterized predominantly by extremely violent street protests targeting civilians and law enforcement officials, intermittent and targeted pogroms on religious minorities and assassination of political opponents.
Since 2013, a newer dimension to the violence came in the form of petrol bombs and Molotov cocktail attacks on passengers in public transport.
Past attempts to kill Sheikh Hasina
Six years after the 1975 massacre, Sheikh Hasina returned to her motherland to lead the Awami League and propel it to election victories in 1996 and 2009. She has been in power ever since, presiding over Bangladesh’s Golden Decade of Development which has since the once-poor country goes past even giant neighbour India in per capita income, per capita GDP growth, and human development indicators.
However, repeated attempts on her life were made only to stop her journey but it was out of sheer luck that she survived every assassination plan.
The first attack on Sheikh Hasina came on January 24, 1986. On the same day, fires were opened on an eight-party alliance procession near Laldighi Maidan in Chattogram clearly with the ill motive of killing her.
On 12 August 1989, at around midnight, a group of armed terrorists of the Freedom Party attacked Bangabandhu’s residence No. 32 in Dhanmondi. Awami League President Sheikh Hasina was at that residence at that time. The assailants fired at Bangabandhu Bhaban for about 10 minutes and hurled a grenade. Sheikh Hasina survived as the grenade did not explode.
On September 11, 1991, Sheikh Hasina went to see the Family Planning Centre on Green Road after voting in the by-election at Dhanmondi School near Green Road in the capital Dhaka. There she was shot and bombed as soon as she got out of the car.
In September 1994, the then Leader of the Opposition Sheikh Hasina was shot and bombed at the entrance of Ishwardi station on 23 September. Later, shots and bombs were hurled at his train at Natore railway station.
The Awami League president was shot at and bombs were hurled while she was addressing a rally at Russell Square (next to Dhanmondi 32) in the capital Dhaka on December 6, 1995. Shortly after Sheikh Hasina’s speech at an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue on March 7, 1996, bullets and bombs were hurled at the stage from a microbus. 20 people were injured.
The major attack conducted by Harkatul Jihad (Huji) was in Sheikh Hasina’s constituency in Kotalipara of Gopalganj. On July 20, 2000, Huji planted a 76kg bomb near a public meeting place and helipad at Kotalipara in Gopalganj. A local tea shop owner informed the law enforcement agencies, and the bomb weighing 76 kg was recovered by digging the soil. The Prime Minister was scheduled to address a meeting at the local Sheikh Lutfur Rahman Degree College ground on July 22.
On May 29, 2001, then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was scheduled to inaugurate the construction of the Rupsha Bridge in Khulna. The militant group Huji planted a bomb there to assassinate her. Huji later confessed the offence.
During the caretaker government in 2001, Sheikh Hasina went to Sylhet on September 25 as part of a campaign. Two people were killed on the spot when a bomb exploded in a house 500 yards away from the public meeting place of Sylhet Alia Madrasa Maidan.
On March 4, 2002, Juba Dal cadre Khalid bin Hedayet attacked the convoy of the Sheikh Hasina in front of the BMC Government Women’s College in Naogaon.
On April 2, 2004, the alleged Jamaat-BNP assassins opened fire on Sheikh Hasina’s convoy at Gournadi in Barishal.
Sheikh Hasina miraculously survived a horrific grenade attack at an Awami League rally on August 21, 2004. However, 24 Awami League leaders and activists including Ivy Rahman were killed.
The one-eleven government arrested Sheikh Hasina on July 17, 2008. She was kept in a special sub-jail set up in the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban area. There, attempts were made to kill Sheikh Hasina by constantly poisoning her food. Sheikh Hasina fell ill due to slow poisoning.
